Viewpoint Lecture with Robert D. Mowry

Collected Stones: The Essence of the Chinese Landscape This illustrated lecture by renowned art historian Robert D. Mowry will introduce the Chinese artistic medium of collected stones. Robert D. Mowry was for many years the Alan J. Dworsky Curator of Chinese Art and Head of the Department of Asian Art at the Harvard Art Museums and Senior Lecturer in Chinese and Korean Art in Harvard’s Department of the History of Art and Architecture. He spent most of his career at the Harvard Art Museums (formerly known as the Fogg Art Museum), beginning there as an assistant curator in 1977. Taking a break from Harvard, he served as the founding curator of the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection at The Asia Society in New York from 1980 until 1986. On his return to Harvard late in 1986, he was appointed Curator of Chinese Art and then was named the first Alan J. Dworsky Curator of Chinese Art in 2000. His 1997 Worlds Within Worlds: The Richard Rosenblum Collection of Chinese Scholars’ Rocks remains the standard reference on scholars’ rocks. On his retirement in 2013, Harvard formally named him Curator Emeritus; since his retirement from Harvard, he has served as a Senior Consultant in Chinese and Korean Art at Christie’s.