J. Keith Wilson Is Named Associate Director and Curator of Ancient Chinese Art at the Freer and Sackler Galleries

September 20, 2006
The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and the Freer Gallery of Art announce the appointment of J. Keith Wilson as associate director and curator of ancient Chinese art, completing an extensive search to fill the post. The Freer and Sackler galleries form the national museum of Asian art for the United States.

In addition to performing curatorial duties, Wilson will join the senior administrative team at the Freer and Sackler galleries to develop and oversee a variety of programmatic initiatives.

“Keith brings to the Freer and Sackler a substantive record as a curator, scholar and museum administrator,” said director Julian Raby. “We look forward to his talented oversight of one of the world’s most distinguished collections of ancient Chinese art.”

Since 1996, he has served, successively, as head of Far Eastern art and chief curator of Asian art at the Los Angeles County Museum. Among his many impressive accomplishments while at LACMA was the renovation and reinstallation of the galleries for Chinese and Korean art. Prior to joining LACMA, Wilson served as curator of Chinese art at the Cleveland Museum of Art from 1988 to 1996.

Wilson holds a bachelor’s degree in Chinese studies from Williams College, a master’s degree in Far Eastern art from the University of Michigan and a Master of Fine Arts in Chinese and Japanese art and archaeology from Princeton University. From 1985 to 1986 he was a visiting research scholar in the archaeology, etymology and philology section at Tokyo University.