New Books In East Asian Studies

Noelle Giuffrida’s book, Separating Sheep from Goats: Sherman E. Lee and Chinese Art Collecting in Postwar America (University of California Press, 2018), tells the history of collecting and exhibiting Chinese art through the story of renowned curator and museum director Sherman E. Lee (1918-2008). This book provides one of the first forays into post-war North American collecting and exhibiting, carefully reconstructing the rise of the USA as the scholarly hub on Chinese art, in many ways displacing Europe’s dominance in this area. As such, Separating Sheep from Goats, contributes hugely to the historiography of the field of East Asian art and gives sense of individuals and their contributions, rather than institutions. Relying on extensive archival research, Noelle Giuffrida shines light on the so-called ‘Monuments Men’ and namely their time in East Asia in this engaging and lavishly illustrated book. In this podcast, Noelle and I talk about we talk about the archival research that went into writing this boo