A little-known aspect of Charles Lang Freer’s collecting was his deep commitment to the aesthetic presentation and care of his East Asian painting collection. In 1916, he hired two scroll-mounters from Japan to remount hundreds of his paintings before they were transferred to the Smithsonian. This set the precedent for the East Asian Painting Conservation Studio, which continues to conserve and remount this growing collection today. In connection with the exhibition Journey of Taste: Freer and Japanese Scroll Mounting, conservator Andrew Hare and curator Frank Feltens will share some of the behind-the-scenes stories about the hanging scrolls, archival albums, videos, and people that made this journey-themed centennial exhibition possible. 
 
Frank Feltens is associate curator of Japanese art at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art. He holds a PhD from Columbia University and is a specialist in Japanese painting from the late medieval to modern period. Recently, he has published the books Ogata Kōrin: Art in Early Modern Japan (Yale University Press, 2021) and, with Yukio Lippit, Sesson Shūkei: A Zen Monk-Painter in Medieval Japan (Hirmer, 2021). He is currently working on a volume on China in the Japanese imagination, circa 1700 to 1900. 
 
Andrew Hare is the supervisory conservator, East Asian Painting Conservation Studio, at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art. He helps facilitate training programs for Japanese and Chinese painting conservation and produces educational workshops and materials focused on innovative preservation methods. He holds a BA in East Asian Studies from Oberlin College and in 2000 completed a ten-year apprenticeship in Japanese painting conservation at the Usami Shōkakudō Conservation Studio within the Kyoto National Museum Conservation Centre for Cultural Properties. 
 
This talk is part of the monthly lunchtime series Sneak Peek: New Research from the National Museum of Asian Art, where staff members present brief, personal perspectives and ongoing research, followed by discussion. This year, the series focuses on the theme of journeys—those that works of art depict and those they have undergone—in the collections of the National Museum of Asian Art. 
  
Register here: https://smithsonian.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ZtYeUinKQnGarXH2A4ByGA 

Image credit: A Buddhist monk's stole (kesa), Japan, Edo period, 1603–1868, silk, Gift of Charles Lang Freer, Freer Gallery of Art, F1916.663