Consul General of Japan Views Museum's Art of Asia

Consul General of Japan Akira Muto and his wife, Misako Muto, made a stop by the Smith College Museum of Art last weekend for a last-chance viewing of Collecting Art of Asia, a commemorative exhibition celebrating a century of acquiring Asian artworks in the museum, since the first gift in 1913 by collector Charles Lang Freer of a dozen carved panels.

Collecting Art of Asia closes Sunday, May 26.

The exhibition recently received a glowing review by Sebastian Smee in the Boston Globe. “Collecting Art of Asia is more than a stock-taking show that happens to mark 100 years of collecting,” writes Smee. “It’s also a statement of intent…But what is striking about it is how determinedly, how brightly, it looks to the future.”

Smith’s Museum of Art, which holds more than 45 Asian works, recently created a new gallery, to be open in 2015, named the Carol T. Christ Asian Art Gallery.