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A hands-on collection

The Sackler Foundation loans 220 valuable study pieces to the NAU Art Museum.

By BETSEY BRUNER
Arts, Culture & Community Editor
Sunday, November 08, 2009

More than 200 valuable works of Asian art have found a new home at the NAU Art Museum. The ancient artworks are on long-term loan from the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation in New York City.

Although not available for viewing by the general public, the collection is for use by dedicated scholars and students of Asian art, museum studies and other cultural and historical areas. These scholars will now have the opportunity to put their hands on this extensive art collection -- without using traditional white cotton museum gloves.

A ROOM OF ITS OWN

Elizabeth A. Sackler, Ph.D., daughter of Arthur M. Sackler and president of the foundation board, presented the collection and ceremoniously cut the ribbon in an evening reception Oct. 30 at the NAU Art Museum.

The ribbon opened the door to the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation Study Collection, which is housed in what was previously a small gallery at the museum.

The work featured is all Asian, from the Middle East to the Far East, said Ty Miller, program coordinator at the museum.

Michael Vincent, Ph.D, dean of the College of Arts and Letters, and George Speer, Ph.D., director of the NAU Art Museum, were also present at the opening reception.

"Northern Arizona University and the Northern Arizona University AU Art Museum are deeply grateful to Dr. Sackler for bringing this study collection to our campus, where it will serve as an extraordinary educational resource for our students and scholars," said George Speer, Ph.D., director of the NAU Art Museum. "The loan of these objects greatly strengthens the mission of the NAU Art Museum as a teaching institution; the presence of this study collection will, inevitably, broaden our students' frames of reference in matters of religion, the humanities and art history."

A PERFECT FIT AT NAU

In a phone interview, Speer added that the loan of the collection to NAU came about fortuitously.

"Elizabeth came here two years ago as the Cline Lecturer," Speer said. "We began conversations with her ... She felt that NAU educational needs were the perfect fit for the goals that her father had established decades ago for part of his collection."

Speer said Sackler came to see NAU as the ideal place to situate this collection by stressing the value of looking at actual objects, rather than just images of objects.

"The long-term goal is that antropology and Asian studies and other departments will aslo be able to used the collection for study," Miller said.

The study collection will soon have a computer to enhance research in the collection room, he added.

The Arthur M. Sackler Foundation was established in 1965 by the late Arthur M. Sackler, M.D. The foundation lends art from its collection of more than 1,000 works of art to museums, organizes traveling exhibitions, and has published 11 scholarly catalogues of the Arthur M. Sackler Collections.

Betsey Bruner can be reached at bbruner@azdailysun.com or 556-2255.

A Sackler legacy

Arthur M. Sackler, (Aug. 22, 1913, Brooklyn, New York - May 26, 1987, New York City), was an American psychiatrist, entrepreneur and philanthropist.

He attended New York University School of Medicine and graduated with an M.D. In 1960 Sackler started publication of Medical Tribune, a weekly medical newspaper. He earned his fortune by gaining the rights to import and sell Valium in the United States.

Sackler established a wide range of medical institutions bearing his name, such as the Sackler Institute of Graduate Biomedical Science at New York University, the Arthur M. Sackler Science Center at Clark University, the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences and the Arthur M. Sackler Center for Health Communications at Tufts University.

Sackler was also a scholar of the arts, and endowed a number of institutions, such as galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Princeton University, the Arthur M. Sackler Museum at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., the Arthur M. Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology at Peking University in Beijing, the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C., and the Jillian & Arthur M. Sackler Wing at the Royal Academy, London.

His daughter, Elizabeth A. Sackler, is also a benefactor of the arts and sponsored the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, which opened in 2007.

-- Wikipedia

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