The Advisor: Sherman E. Lee and Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd
Art historian, curator, teacher, and museum director Sherman E. Lee (1918–2008) was a major force in the world of Asian Art in the United States. His considerable influence is apparent in the works he selected for the remarkable collections of the Seattle Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and Asia Society Museum’s Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection. Lee’s book A History of Far Eastern Art, first published in 1964, was used as the standard text for the study of Asian Art for over a decade. Lee studied at Western Reserve University in Cleveland under his mentor Howard Coonly Hollis (1899–1995). His later experiences in Japan served to enhance this formal art historical and connoisseurship training.
Sherman E. Lee served as advisor to Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd (JDR 3rd) from 1963 to 1978, when the collection was donated to Asia Society. Lee helped the couple assemble one of the most spectacular private collections of Asian art in the United States by introducing them to major dealers and informing them of important pieces that were available.
Both Lee and JDR 3rd had extraordinary knowledge of the art and politics of Asia, and their partnership led to a very particular vision of collection building. The Rockefeller collection, Lee said, was “one that insists on the highest possible quality in the objects acquired and on their capacity to be understood and enjoyed by the interested layman rather than only to be studied by the specialized scholar.”1 For the Rockefellers, however, their goal in building a collection went beyond this. JDR 3rd felt a responsibility to contribute to understanding and cooperation between Asia and the United Sates.
1Asia Society Advance for Release in Morning Papers, 1974
In his A History of Far Eastern Art, Sherman E. Lee states that the school of art associated with Hon’ami Koetsu and Tawaraya Sotatsu (the Rinpa school) is representative of the “culmination of later Japanese decorative style.” Lee acquired the scroll on display with poems from Shinkokin wakashÅ« in 1966; Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd acquired their scroll four years later in 1970.
Both scrolls feature the bold forms and lavish surfaces associated with the work of these two artists. The poems on the Cleveland scroll, in Japanese, and those on the Rockefeller collection scroll, in both Chinese and Japanese, are written in KÅetsu’s distinctive, elegant cursive calligraphy.
In his A History of Far Eastern Art, Sherman E. Lee explained that the ceramics of the Chinese Song period ”achieved a unity of the essentials of the ceramic art which has never been surpassed.” Both Asia Society’s Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd collection and the Cleveland Museum of Art collection include superb examples of Song period wares acquired under Lee’s recommendation.Â
These rare Song period pieces demonstrate the Song potters’ desire to produce wares that rivaled the qualities of jade, a highly honored material in China due to its appealing appearance and symbolism of virtue and permanence. The graceful porcelain body of the vase is covered by a thick, lustrous sea green glaze, typical of wares from the Longquan area in Zhejiang province. The incense burner, created for the court of the Southern Song dynasty, is modeled after a bronze ritual vessel called gui that was produced during the Shang (ca. 1600–1100 BCE) and Zhou (ca. 1100–256 BCE) periods.
This cast image of the Bodhisattva Maitreya (the Buddha of the Future) is one of the finest eighth-century Southeast Asian bronze sculptures in the world. It is also considered by many to be the crown jewel of the Rockefeller collection. The scanty clothing, long matted hair, and lack of jewelry indicate that this image represents Maitreya as an ascetic bodhisattva, a type found throughout Southeast Asia from the seventh through ninth century.
Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd purchased the sculpture in 1966. Eleven years later, Mr. Rockefeller wrote a letter to the London dealer who sold him the sculpture, demonstrating the continuing advisory relationship between the Rockefellers and Lee: “We have now had a chance to talk with Sherman Lee and the conversation confirmed my own feelings that the really outstanding Maitreya piece which we bought from you several years ago adequately represents this phase of Cambodian art.”
