Miriam McNair Scott Papers

The collection contains notes and drafts related to Miriam McNair Scott's book "The Art of Sukhothai," as well as planned future books. Her research focused on these periods of Thai art history and history: Ayudhya/ Ayutthaya, Dvaravati, Haripunjaya/ Haripunchai, Lan Na, and Sukhothai.

The collection contains papers and articles by scholars in the Thai history and art history field that were used by Miriam McNair Scott for her book. Topics included ceramics, linguistics, architecture, and Thai history. Photographs of architecture and statues were taken by Robert McNair Scott and Robert Stratton. Additional photographs are from the collections of the British Museum and the National Museum Bangkok.

Folder titles use place names as they appeared in original folders and documentation, some of which may be outdated. Notable alternative spellings include: Haripunjaya/ Haripunchai and Ayudhya/ Ayutthaya.

Miriam McNair Scott (née Tannhauser) was a Southeast Asian art historian. She graduated from Vassar College in 1963 and studied at the University of Zurich. She married Dr. Robert McNair Scott in 1967. He was the photographer for some of the photographs within the collection. In 1972, she moved with her family to Bangkok, Thailand on a military assignment for her husband.

Between 1972 and 1978, she studied Buddhism and Southeast Asian art and volunteered with the National Museum Volunteers (NMV) group as the lecture series lead. During this time, she collaborated with Carol Stratton, another NMV volunteer, on the book "The Art of Sukhothai." The two intended to create an eight-volume series on the art of Thailand covering architecture, ceramics, sculpture, painting, and prehistory. "The Art of Sukhothai" was published in 1981. McNair Scott and Stratton began work on their next book, "The Art of Northern Thailand", before McNair Scott died in 1987. Stratton's book "Buddhist Sculpture of Northern Thailand" was based on the work for "The Art of Northern Thailand" and McNair Scott's contribution is credited.

McNair Scott is also credited with contributing to the "Golden Peninsula" chapter of the National Geographic Society's "People and Places of the Past." She also consulted for the Smithsonian later in her career.

Miriam McNair Scott

Stratton, Carol

Thailand

Art, Southeast Asian

Art, Buddhist

Miriam McNair Scott Papers

Gift of Robert McNair Scott.

Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Miriam McNair Scott Papers. FSA.A2001.09. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

This collection is organized into two series

Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.

Collection is open for research.