LOCATION The galleries are located on the National Mall, the grassy area between the Capitol and the Washington Monument, steps from the Smithsonian Metro stop. The Sackler Gallery is located at 1050 Independence Avenue, SW. The Freer Gallery of Art is located at Jefferson Drive at 12th Street, SW. The two museums are connected by an underground exhibition space.
HOURS AND ADMISSION Hours are from 10 AM to 5:30 PM every day except Dec. 25, and admission is free.
The gallery opened in 1987 to house a gift of some 1,000 works of Asian art from Dr. Arthur M. Sackler (1913–1987), a research physician and medical publisher from New York City. Among the highlights of his gift were early Chinese bronzes and jades, Chinese paintings and lacquerware, ancient Near Eastern ceramics and metalware, and sculpture from South and Southeast Asia.
Sackler also donated $4 million toward construction of the gallery.
Since 1987, the gallery's collections have expanded to include the Vever Collection, an important assemblage of the Islamic arts of the book from the 11th to the 19th century; 19th- and 20th-century Japanese prints and contemporary porcelain; Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean paintings; arts of village India; contemporary Chinese ceramics; and photography.
International loan exhibitions have included Timur and the Princely Vision: Persian Art and Culture in the 15th Century; Yani: the Brush of Innocence, featuring paintings by a 14-year-old Chinese prodigy; When Kingship Descended from Heaven: Masterpieces of Mesopotamian Art from the Louvre; Court Arts of Indonesia; Korean Art of the 18th Century: Splendor & Simplicity; and A Basketmaker in Rural Japan.
The Sackler Gallery is connected by an underground exhibition space to the neighboring Freer Gallery of Art. Although their collections are stored and exhibited separately, the two museums share a director, administration, and staff.
The Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Auditorium, located in the Freer, provides a venue for a broad variety of free public programs relating to the collections of the Freer and Sackler galleries, including concerts of Asian music and dance, films, lectures, chamber music, and dramatic presentations.
Gods of Angkor: Bronzes from the National Museum of Cambodia May 15 - January 23 The fascinating story of bronze sculpture and casting in Cambodia is revealed through thirty-six exceptional works. Magnificent examples dating from the prehistoric period to the post-Angkorian period (third century BCE to sixteenth century CE) present the origins, uses, and techniques of bronze casting and the development of a distinctly Cambodian style.
Enigmatic Views of Chinese Landscape Explore the Passage of Time Hai Bo March 27 - November 8 Five large-scale photographs by the Chinese artist Hai Bo. The photographs are the latest installment in the Sackler's contemporary series, "Perspectives," which focuses on the work of leading contemporary artists from Asia and the Asian diaspora and bridges the gap between the traditional, often separate, roles played by Asian art museums and modern art galleries.
Gods of Angkor
CONTINUING INDEFINITELY AT THE ARTHUR M. SACKLER GALLERY
The Arts of China A variety of materials, techniques, and motifs, which span almost six thousand years, are explored in this exhibition of 228 objects highlighting the Sackler Gallery's permanent holdings of Chinese art. The exhibition features jades and bronzes, Buddhist sculpture and wall paintings, glass, lacquer ware, furniture, and paintings from the Neolithic period to the 20th century.
Contemporary Japanese Porcelain Twentieth-century Japanese artists give fresh interpretations to the time-honored art of porcelain in this selection of works from the Sackler Gallery's collection. The distinctive decorations, which range from natural motifs to more abstract designs, are created using iron and cobalt pigments and platinum, gold, and silver enamels. Sculpture of South and Southeast Asia A group of 10th- to 13th-century Cambodian stone sculptures complements a display of Hindu stone, bronze, brass, and terra-cotta sculptures from South India dating from the 8th through the 14th century.
