George L. Stout Memorial Lecture
Passions, Fashions, and Finance: Boston’s Role in Preserving Asian Paintings from 1900 to the Present
Jacki Elgar, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Thursday
September 18, 2025
7 - 8:30 pm
Calderwood Hall
Boston’s trend-setting art collectors of the early 20th century transformed the city into a center for collecting and preserving Asian art unequaled in Europe and the Americas. Encouraging their peers to collect and preserve Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Himalayan artworks, these influential men and women formed ideas and trends that extended beyond Boston and which would set standards in the fields of conservation and curation for decades to come.
Presented by Jacki Elgar, Pamela and Peter Voss Head of Asian Conservation at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), this lecture will pay particular attention to the preservation of Asian paintings, namely scrolls, at the MFA and will also examine the current state of Asian art conservation in the United States.
Image Credit: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (31.643)
About The Speaker
Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Jacki Elgar is the Pamela and Peter Voss Head of Asian Conservation at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She began her career at the Museum first as a third-year conservation graduate school intern then rose through the ranks as a Getty Fellow, Assistant Conservator, and and now the Pamela and Peter Voss Head of Asian Conservation. Throughout this journey, Jacki had a vision for Asian Conservation to be less mystical, but rather practical and science based. Prior to her, there had only been mounters of Japanese paintings for the entire collection of Asian Art, which includes numerous cultures and countries other than Japan. Under her leadership, the Asian studio has grown to three sections: Japanese paintings, Chinese paintings, and Asian unmounted paper and books. In 2012, Jacki curated the exhibition Seeking Shambhala (MFA), which returned a set of 17th-century Tibetan paintings to their original thangka formats. She has published extensively and received numerous awards during her career, including one from the Japanese Government in 1996 for which she was invited to study at the four paintings conservation studios within the Kyoto National Museum’s Conservation Center.
Stout Memorial Lecture
Held each year in honor of George L. Stout, the Museum’s Director from 1955 to 1970 and a founder of modern art conservation, the Stout Memorial Lecture celebrates excellence in preservation and understanding of cultural heritage.
Tickets
Advanced tickets are required and include Museum admission. Adults $22, seniors $20, students $15, free for members and children 17 and under. Seating in Calderwood Hall is first come, first served. Seating begins 45 minutes before the event. Late seating is not guaranteed.
To request accessible or wheelchair seating please call the box office at 617 278 5156.