Stepping Out

On exhibit at Nassau County Museum of Art

Images of China through the centuries

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Nassau County Museum of Art’s (NCMA) current exhibit, “China Then and Now” is a first for the museum – in more ways than one. It explores three millennia of one of the world’s most important artistic traditions, going all the way back to the first millennium. And it represents the first international exhibition of this stature. mounted by the museum.
“It’s an exciting show and is the first time that the museum has made an international endeavor,” says Karl E. Willers, director of the Nassau County Museum of Art. “And it presents an extraordinary collection that was assembled by some prestigious Long Islanders who had a deep interest in Chinese art.”
That includes the porcelain china collected by Childs and Frances Frick, who lived in the Georgian-style mansion that is now houses the museum. “These extraordinary porcelains have come home,” says Willers, “and are displayed as when the Fricks lived here.”
The exhibit, which takes over the museum’s first floor galleries and extends to the second floor, starts all they way back when — in the days of Chinese fiefdoms — in the first millennium (300-700) with a group of Buddhist stone sculpture, on loan from Columbia University’s Arthur M. Sackler Collection Acquired by Sackler, who lived in Manhattan and Manhasset, “these are an extraordinary example of Buddhist sculpture,” says Willers, “that have never really been accessible to the public before.”
From that grand entrance, the exhibit continues to unfold through the remaining galleries, each of which showcases the elegant beauty of Chinese art of a different era and medium. Visitors will come to understand the passion that American collectors — both the past and present — have for the culture and history of China.

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