National Museum of Asian Art Announces Major Gift To Fully Endow and Name the June and Simon K.C. Li Curator of Chinese Art

A gift from June and Simon K.C. Li to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art has endowed a position for Curator of Chinese Art. This endowment will support current curator J. Keith Wilson as the inaugural June and Simon K.C. Li Curator of Chinese Art.

“This generous gift will play a crucial role in sharing Chinese art and culture with our visitors” said Chase F. Robinson, the museum’s director. “By endowing this position, the Li family is funding innovative research, groundbreaking exhibitions and the untold everyday work our curators undertake to forward our mission of deepening the understanding of Asian art and cultures.”

June and Simon K.C. Li have supported many Chinese culture initiatives in the United States and the United Kingdom. June Li has been a member of the National Museum of Asian Art’s board of trustees since 2022 and serves on the museum’s collections committee.

This new gift builds on the Li family’s ongoing support of the museum and its Chinese art program. June Li is curator emerita and founding curator of Liu Fang Yuan, the Garden of Flowing Fragrance, at the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California. She founded a series of educational programs, including lectures, symposiums, exhibitions and performance arts to highlight Chinese garden culture. The couple also established the Center for East Asian Garden Studies at the Huntington. After her retirement in 2014, June Li continued as an advisor on Huntington projects and curated an exhibition for which she co-authored the catalog Gardens, Art and Commerce in Chinese Woodblock Prints. She previously worked at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), first as a registrar then as assistant curator. She managed several exhibitions on Chinese art, including two major traveling exhibitions from China. She ultimately retired as the associate curator of Chinese and Korean Art.

This gift benefits the National Museum of Asian Art’s Second Century Campaign. The Second Century Campaign is part of the Smithsonian Campaign for Our Shared Future, which is securing funds for all Smithsonian museums, libraries, education, outreach and research centers and the National Zoo in support of a single, bold vision: to build a better future for all.

About the Museum’s Chinese Art Collections

With more than 13,000 objects dating from Neolithic times (ca. 7000–ca. 1700 BCE) to the present, the Chinese collection at the National Museum of Asian Art is among the finest in the world. In addition to countless masterworks, the collections reflect all major periods and materials of artistic production. Special strengths include remarkable ancient jades and bronzes, early Buddhist sculpture, imperial and trade ceramics, lacquer, classical paintings and calligraphy, all of which are among the greatest treasures of Chinese art outside of China. Research on the collections has resulted in numerous groundbreaking publications and exhibitions, including “Anyang: China’s Ancient City of Kings,” the recent digital publication Jades for Life and Death and a forthcoming catalog of the museum’s Chinese ceramics collection.

About the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art (NMAA) is committed to preserving, exhibiting, researching and interpreting art in ways that deepen the public and scholarly understandings of Asia and the world. NMAA opened in 1923 as America’s first national art museum and the first Asian art museum in the United States. The museum now stewards one of the world’s most important collections of Asian art, with works dating from antiquity to the present, from China, Japan, Korea, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the pre-Islamic Near East and the Islamic world (inclusive of Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa). The museum also stewards an important collection of 19th- and early 20th-century American art.

Today, NMAA is emerging as a leading national and global resource for understanding the arts, cultures and societies of Asia, especially at their intersection with America. Guided by the belief that the future of art museums lies in collaboration, increased access and transparency, NMAA is fostering new ways to engage with its audiences while maintaining its commitment to excellence.

Located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the museum is free and open 364 days a year (closed Dec. 25). The Smithsonian, which is the world’s largest museum, education and research complex, welcomes 20–30 million visitors yearly. For more information about the National Museum of Asian Art, visit asia.si.edu.

For Press Inquiries

PressAsia@si.edu
Phone: (202) 633-0271
Fax: (202) 633-0043

Office of Marketing and Communications

National Museum of Asian Art
PO Box 37012, MRC 707
Washington, DC 20013-7012