EXHIBITION PREVIEW:  John C. Weber: Collector Extraordinaire
 
This exhibition, featuring more than one hundred remarkable objects, reveals the discriminating taste of John C. Weber, collector, and Julia Meech, curator of the collection, who have taken to heart advice once given to them by a Japanese museum director: "Don't buy anything that you can walk past without stopping."

Dr. Weber, formerly a professor of anatomy, a dean at Cornell University Medical College, and associate director of the New York Hospital, purchased Rembrandt etchings as a young man. Later, he helped form the impressive collection of ancient Chinese art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His collecting turned to Japanese art only eleven years ago-an impressive demonstration of how museum-quality works of art can be acquired over a short period of time. As he has learned more about Japanese art and culture, his collecting interests have broadened. This exhibition includes noteworthy paintings, lacquers, ceramics, sculpture, and textiles, ranging from the early eighth to the mid-twentieth century.

An avid athlete, Dr. Weber first visited the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in 2001, when he was in town to participate in the Lifetime Fitness Triathlon. He has returned nearly every year since, and this relationship made the MIA a logical choice for the exhibition. After opening at the Museum of East Asian Art, National Museums in Berlin, the show traveled to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Minneapolis is its final venue. Because Dr. Weber has added forty-three recently acquired objects to the show, visitors to the MIA will be able to see his collection at its most spectacular.

Click on an image to enlarge:
negoro bottle image
shoki and tiger image
poet competition image
white peafowl image
wisteria robe image
Battle of the Carriage image