Separating sheep from goats: Sherman E. Lee and Chinese art collecting in postwar America

Abstract

"Separating Sheep from Goats investigates the history of collecting and exhibiting Chinese art through the lens of the career of renowned American curator and museum director Sherman E. Lee (1918-2008). Drawing upon artworks and archival materials, Noelle Giuffrida excavates an international society of collectors, dealers, curators, and scholars who comprised the art world in which Lee operated. From his early training in Michigan and his work in occupied Japan as a monuments man to his acquisitions, exhibitions, and publications for museums in Detroit, Seattle, and Cleveland, this study traces how Lee shaped public and scholarly understandings of Chinese art"--Provided by publisher.

Contents

Discovering Chinese art in the American heartland -- China, Japan, and Seattle : navigating the study of Chinese art in the 1940s -- An American epicenter : collecting and exhibiting Chinese paintings in the 1950s -- Diplomacy and revolution : presenting Chinese art in the 1960s -- Reorientations : turning to Japan and China in the 1970s and 1980s.