b'honoringjoan lebold cohen 54ON SEPTEMBER 26, 2019,Smith College Presidentlights exemplified Joans achievements as an artist in Kathleen McCartney and SCMA Director Jessica Nicollher own right and a philanthropically minded alumna. organized a program in honor of Joan Lebold CohenJoan shared her memories of engaging Asia since54 as she retired from the SCMA Museum Visitingthe 1960s and particularly her unique experience Committee. Joan has always generously given her time,of being one of the first Americans to introduce expertise and hospitality to Smith, along with works of late-20th-century Chinese art to an overseas audience art and funding. A member of the committee since 1974,through publications, lectures and exhibitions. She she worked with four SCMA directors on acquisitions, also generously acknowledged the Asian Art Task fundraising, programming and strategic development.Force to be a collective project, giving credit to her Most noteworthy among Joans countlesslong-term collaborators.contributions is her tireless advocacy for Asian studiesThe group then proceeded to the Nixonand especially Asian art at Smith. Throughout all theseGallery for Works on Paper, where two works of art years, she helped the museums Asian art collectiongifted in Joans honor were debuted. Painted by grow significantly, brought numerous exhibitionsBeijing-based artists Yu Hanyu (below right) and Lan featuring contemporary Chinese art to campus andZhenghui (below left) respectively, they were donated spearheaded the Asian Art Task Force, which success- by Joans son Ethan Cohen. Yus horizontal composi-fully established a systematic and sustained Asian arttion and bold brushwork evoke landscape traditions program at SCMA. that can be traced back to earlier Chinese dynasties. On this special occasion, members of the Lans gestural painting, on the other hand, simulta-Museum Visiting Committee and Smith and Fiveneously deploys the Chinese calligraphic idiom and College communities were invited to celebrate Joansmodern conceptual abstraction. These two dynamic lifelong devotion to Asian art at Smith College. Theworks of art perfectly embody the great vigor with program started with welcome remarks by Michaelwhich Joan has dedicated herself to learning, teach-Thurston, provost and dean of the faculty. Yao Wu,ing and helping, as Ethan noted in the credits.Jane Chace Carroll Curator of Asian Art, led a tour ofThe evening celebration ended with a reception and the newly opened exhibition BuddhasBuddhisms:dinner hosted by President McCartney. Colleagues, Across and Beyond Asia in the Carol T. Christ Asian friends and family members spoke admiringly and Art Gallery. Highlights on the tour included a photo- affectionately of Joan and her dedicated service to graph of a Tibetan Buddhist monastery taken by Joanthe museum for half a century. Joan Lebold Cohens in 1996 and a large-scale collage by Shanghai-based decades-long advocacy for Asian art will have a lasting artist Qiu Deshu donated by Joan. These two high- impact on generations of students at Smith College.connectingpeopleto each other64'