Scholarly programs, designed for experts, students, and enthusiasts, share groundbreaking research and provide a deeper look into Asian and American art and culture. Symposia are open to the public and available to watch online.
Scholarly Programs


Symposia & Conferences
Freer Medal Lecture and Award Ceremonies
In 2023, as part of the National Museum of Asian Art’s centennial celebrations, the Charles Lang Freer Medal will go to Vidya Dehejia, the Barbara Stoler Miller Professor Emerita of Indian and South Asian Art at Columbia University, for her lifetime work in South Asian art, and to Gülru Necipoğlu, the Aga Khan Professor and Director of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University’s History of Art and Architecture Department, for her lifetime work in the arts of the Islamic world.
- Postponed—Freer Medal Lecture and Award Ceremony: Honoring Vidya Dehejia
Friday, April 28, 2023, 6 p.m.
Meyer Auditorium, Freer Gallery of Art
Due to unforeseen business circumstances, we need to postpone the Freer Medal lecture and the conferring of the award. We regret any inconvenience this late notice may cause. We hope to have an update soon. - Freer Medal Lecture and Award Ceremony: Honoring Gülru Necipoğlu
Friday, October 27, 2023, 6 p.m.
Meyer Auditorium, Freer Gallery of Art
Please visit the award page for more information.
Chinese Object Study Workshops
2013–2024
Sophisticated visual analysis is a hallmark of art history and depends on skills acquired through the direct study of objects. These skills must be taught and practiced. Yet as graduate art history curricula have expanded to include training in methodology, historiography, and theory, training in object study has lessened. The problem is exacerbated for students of Chinese art history, whose graduate curricula include intensive language courses, as well as courses on religion, literature, and history.
Chinese Object Study Workshops is a program that provides graduate students in Chinese art history an immersive experience in the study of objects. The week-long workshops will help students develop the skills necessary for working with objects, introduce them to conservation issues not readily encountered in typical graduate art history curricula, and familiarize them with important American museum collections.
Postponed – Symposium: Japan in the Age of Modernization: The Art of Tomioka Tessai and Otagaki Rengetsu
This event has been postponed
This symposium gathers scholars from the United States, Japan, and Europe, who look beyond Japan’s Western industrialization to examine China’s role in forming the nation’s modern identity. It accompanies a major retrospective of the modern Japanese painter Tomioka Tessai (1836–1924) on view from March 28 to August 2, 2020, at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art. A curator-led sneak preview of the exhibition concludes the symposium.
- A Moment in Time: Egyptian Antiquities and the Early 20th Century
Tuesday, January 31, 2023, 12 pm - Hidden Networks: The Trade of Asian Art
2020–2022 - The Sasanians in Context: Art, History, and Archaeology
October 21–22, 2022 - Translocation of South Asian Art: Provenance and Documentation
Thursday, October 6—Friday, October 7, 2022 - Ancient Korean Architecture in Context
July 26, 2022 - Untold Stories: Women and the Asian Art Trade
September 30, 2021 - Miniseries: Illustrated Woodblock-Printed Books of the Edo Period
August 10, 17, 24, 2021 - Virtual Symposium—East Asian Painting Conservation: Perspectives on Education, Research, and Practice
June 29, June 30, and July 1, 2021 - Yamanaka & Co.: Early Pioneer of the Global Asian Art Trade
Thursday, April 15, 2021 - Honoring Esin Atil
Saturday, February 20, 2021, 9 am–1 pm EST - C.T. Loo Revisited: New Sources & Perspectives on the Market for Asian Art in the 20th Century
8:30 a.m. –12 p.m., Thursday, December 3, 2020 - Symposium: AfricAsia: Overlooked Histories of Exchange
9–11 a.m., September 14–16, 2020 - Goryeo Art and Culture Study Day
Thursday, February 20, 2020 - Symposium: Korean Buddhist Images and Dedication Practice
Thursday, February 20–Friday, February 21, 2020 - Goryeo Buddhist Painting: A Closer Look
Friday, March 10, 2017 - The Word Illuminated: Form and Function of Qur’anic Manuscripts
December 1–3, 2016 - Sōtatsu’s Times: Perspectives on the Culture and Politics of Kyoto
December 5, 2015 - Sōtatsu in Washington: Insights, Discoveries, and Reflections
October 24, 2015 - In the Dig House: Behind the Scenes in Archaeology
April 25, 2015 - Whistler and Kiyochika: Modernity, Melancholy, and the Nocturne
May 14, 2014 - Whistler Object Study Workshop
June 9–12, 2014 - Medical and Modern Yoga
January 11, 2014 - Yoga and Visual Culture: An Interdisciplinary Symposium
November 21–23, 2013 - The Legacy of Cyrus the Great: Iran and Beyond
April 27, 2013 - Crossroads of Culture: The Archaeology of Saudi Arabia
November 17, 2012 - The Art of Itō Jakuchū
March 30, 2012 - Imperial Exposure: Early Photography and Royal Portraits across Asia
December 5–6, 2011 - Palaces of Art: Whistler and the Art Worlds of Aestheticism
October 27–28, 2011 - Art and Material Culture of the Northern Qi Period
June 3–5, 2011 - Piety, Poetry, and Politics: Sufi Muslims in South Asia
April 28–30, 2011 - Historians Of Islamic Art Association (HIAA) Second Biennial Symposium: “Objects, Collections, And Cultures”
October 21–23, 2010 - Forbes Symposium
October 28–29, 2010