FROM HAN TO QING Exploring Chinese history through ceramics collection
What do museums do when they are given a collection of works and lack an in-house curator who specializes in that area of art? Sometimes they’re able to make do, but some- times they need to solicit outside help.
When the Georgia Museum of Art received a large gift of Chinese ceramics from D. Jack Sawyer Jr. and William E. Torres, it asked UGA alum Kendal Parker (AB ’98; MA ’01), an expert in Asian art, to assess this extensive collection. Parker spent the summer of 2022 in the vaults, carefully examining each object. She also went above and beyond her contracted duties and suggested several installations. The results of her work are now on display in one of the wall cases in the permanent collection. It wasn’t Parker’s first experience with working at the museum. Back in 1997, when she was Kendal Korach, she interned in the registrars’ department. Later, she also served as a curatorial intern while working on her master’s degree in art history at UGA and organized the exhibition “Art for the Afterlife: Chinese Funerary Art of the Han Dynasty” (2000). Parker went on to work at the Ackland Art Museum at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill as assistant curator and later as a consultant; at the Metropolitan Mu- seum of Art in the department of Asian art; as programs coordinator at the Japanese Art Society of America; and at Leland Little Auction & Estate as director of its Asian art department. In 2020, she founded her own company, Ken- dal Parker Art Advisory, that offers assessment, catalogu - ing and curatorial services to private art collection owners, galleries and museums. She also spent seven years living in Hong Kong and Singapore, where she furthered her expertise in Asian art before returning to North Carolina to raise her three sons.
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China, Tang Dynasty (618 – 907 C.E.), jar. Earthenware with sancai glaze. Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia; Gift of Mr. D. Jack Sawyer Jr. and Dr. William E. Torres. GMOA 2023.7.
China, Song Dynasty (960 – 1279 C.E.), ewer. Stoneware with black glaze. Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia; Gift of Mr. D. Jack Sawyer Jr. and Dr. William E. Torres. GMOA 2023.92.
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