Skip to main content

Saturday University: Sherman E. Lee’s Collecting and Exhibitions of Chinese Art

Sat Nov 8 2025

10–11:30 am

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Emma Baillargeon Stimson Auditorium

Photo: Alborz Kamalizad

Welcome to Saturday University, a monthly lecture series featuring experts from around the world. Gain new insights on Asia throughout time as our visiting scholars, authors, artists, and thought leaders delve into new themes each season.

Japan, Seattle, and Cleveland: Sherman E. Lee’s Collecting and Exhibitions of Chinese Art
Noelle Giuffrida

In the decades following World War II, international political, economic, and legal changes affected the art market, prompting a new wave of collecting and exhibiting Chinese art in the United States. Which individuals and institutions played major roles within international networks of dealers, collectors, and curators? Which Chinese works did postwar curators select for art museums, and why? Which tax and export laws impacted the global circulation of Chinese art in the 1940s through the 1970s?

This talk explores these questions by examining the activities of one of the most prominent figures of the postwar era: American curator and museum director Sherman E. Lee (1918–2008). Following his naval service in the Pacific theater, Lee worked as a monuments man in Occupied Japan. During his two-year stay, he had unprecedented access to study art in Japanese collections and developed an extensive network of personal and professional relationships with Japanese collectors, scholars, and museum officials. These experiences helped to shape his collecting and exhibitions of Chinese art during his years as curator and assistant director at the Seattle Art Museum (1948–52) and as curator and director of the Cleveland Museum of Art (1952–1983).

Noelle Giuffrida's research focuses on Chinese art, particularly the history of collecting and exhibiting premodern works in American museums after World War II and the visual culture of Daoism in late imperial China.?Her teaching and curatorial experience extend broadly both temporally—from Neolithic to contemporary—and cross-culturally to China, Korea, and Japan, as well as to South and Southeast Asia.

Her publications include the book Separating Sheep from Goats: Sherman E. Lee and Chinese Art Collecting in Postwar America (University of California Press, 2018) as well as articles and chapters in the Journal of Art Market Studies and Royal Taste: The Art of Princely Courts in 15th Century China. Recent curatorial projects include the special exhibition Fibers of Being: Textiles from Asia in the David Owsley Museum of Art’s Collection (2023). Giuffrida is Associate Professor of Art History at Ball State University. She earned her PhD in Asian art history from the University of Kansas. She previously served as Associate Curator of Asian Art at the David Owsley Museum of Art and taught in the graduate art history program at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Tickets
$15 public
$10 SAM members & students with ID
Tickets include gallery access

Related program

Gardner Center for Asian Art & Ideas

Through lectures, literary events, and more, Gardner Center for Asian Art and Ideas events explore the vast diversity of Asia's history, culture, and contemporary art.

view program

Related program

Saturday University Lecture Series

Gain new insights on Asian Art at this lecture series featuring experts from around the world.

view program

What’s on at Seattle Asian Art Museum

Seattle Asian Art Museum

sold out

SAM Camp: Big & Bold (Grades 1–3)

Mon–Fri Jul 14–18 2025

  

9 am–3 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

sold out

SAM Camp: Mixed Media Magic (Grades 3–6)

Mon–Fri Jul 14–18 2025

  

9 am–3 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

SAM Performs: The Fabric of Your Being

Sat Jul 19 2025

  

3–4 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sun Jul 20 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Member Picnic: Suchitra in the Sun

Sun Jul 20 2025

  

10 am–5 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

sold out

SAM Camp: Nature Explorers (Grades 1–3)

Mon–Fri Jul 21–25 2025

  

9 am–3 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

sold out

SAM Camp: Printmaking Paradise (Grades 3–6)

Mon–Fri Jul 21–25 2025

  

9 am–3 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

SAM Performs: K-Pop Random Play Dance

Sat Jul 26 2025

  

12–2 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sun Jul 27 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sun Aug 3 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Thu Aug 7 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sun Aug 10 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sun Aug 17 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sun Aug 24 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

SAM Performs: K-Pop Random Play Dance

Sat Aug 30 2025

  

12–2 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sat Aug 30 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

SAM Performs: K-Pop Random Play Dance

Sat Sep 27 2025

  

12–2 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

SAM Teen Arts Group Presents: [REDACTED]

Sat–Sat May 31–Sep 27 2025

  

10–5 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Saturday University

Sat Oct 11 2025

  

10–11:30 am

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Saturday University: The Temple Room and Beyond

Sat Dec 13 2025

  

10–11:30 am

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Saturday University: Representations of Transnational Adoptees in Contemporary Korean Dramas

Sat Feb 14 2026

  

2–3:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Saturday University: Photography and the Afterlife of the War in Vietnam

Sat Mar 14 2026

  

2–3:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Saturday University: Blue and Black Panthers

Sat Apr 11 2026

  

2–3:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Saturday University: Why Get a Japanese Dragon Tattoo?

Sat May 9 2026

  

2–3:30 pm