Krannert Art Museum began to collect Asian art with a gift from the Class of 1908. Sculptures of powerful divinities from India, porcelains from China decorated with colorful enamels, woodblock prints from Japan—the diversity of the original collection is as striking as its ambiguous definition of "Asia."
More recently, the Chinese collection, already augmented by the support of Sophie and Brian Leung, has incorporated works by contemporary artists. The aims of the installation are modest. Paintings and works of calligraphy from seventeenth-century China complement the inaugural exhibition of the Lee Wonsik collection; other objects offer only a glimpse into the richly idiosyncratic nature of the museum's collection.
