UW Art Museum to Feature Asian Antiquities

April 6, 2007 -- The University of Wyoming Art Museum will present an exhibition featuring Asian antiquities from the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation April 9-Aug. 19.

A lecture by exhibition curator Trudy S. Kawami, director of research for the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, will be at 7 p.m. Monday, April 23. The exhibition and public lecture are free.

"Ancient Bronzes of the Asian Grasslands" includes a major sampling of steppe art from the renowned collections of the late Arthur M. Sackler. Presented will be 85 works illustrating the personal decorations and equipment of the horse-riding steppe dwellers of the late second and first millennia B.C.

The exhibition features bronze belt buckles, plaques and weapons of the ancient horsemen which are ornate and technically sophisticated. Animal motifs including antlered stags, wild boars and birds of prey are a primary theme.

"The exhibition reveals how these steppe cultures used the animal world as a source of symbols to indicate tribe, social rank and connections to the spirit world," Kawami says.

"Ancient Bronzes of the Asian Grasslands" brings the complex cultures -- which flourished across the Asian grasslands, from northern China and Mongolia into Eastern Europe -- to life, according to Kawami.

Sackler (1913-1987) was a research psychiatrist, medical publisher, and connoisseur and collector of art. He established his foundation in 1965 to grant the public access to his extensive art collections. The entire Arthur M. Sackler Foundation collection includes more than 1,100 works.

Kawami is the author of "Monumental Art of the Parthian period in Iran," "Ancient Iranian ceramics from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections," and many articles. Kawami teaches at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

The UW Art Museum is located in the Centennial Complex at 22nd and Willett Drive in Laramie. The museum is open Mondays from 10 a.m.-9 p.m. and from 10 a.m.-5 p.m Tuesdays through Saturdays.

For more information, call (307) 766-6622 or visit www.uwyo.edu/artmuseum.

Photo
This ornament from Northern China or Inner Mongolia is among artwork in UW Art Museum exhibition featuring Asian antiquities from the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation. (Courtesy Photo)

Posted on Friday, April 06, 2007