North American Museums with Significant Chinese and Japanese Art Collections

Regional antique stores and estate sales are often full of Asian antiques, especially later Chinese and Japanese decorative arts made for export in the later 19th and early 20th century but their quality varies considerably. The best way to learn to identify quality is to see fine pieces in person. This list contains names of many, but not all, North American museums that collect and regularly display Asian arts. The largest and most comprehensive are marked with an astirisk (*)

*Art Institute of Chicago

*Asia Society, NY (Rockefeller collection & special loan exhibitions)

*Asian Art Museum of San Francisco

Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL

Brooklyn Museum of Art

China Institute Gallery, NY (traveling exhibitions only, no permanent collection)

Cincinnati Museum of Art

*Clark Center for Japanese Art and Culture, Hanford, CA

*Cleveland Museum of Art

*Denver Art Museum

*Honolulu Academy of Arts

*Japan Society Gallery, NY (traveling exhibitions only, no permanent collection)

Herbert F. Johnson Art Museum, Cornell University

*Los Angeles County Museum of Art

*Minneapolis Institute of Arts

*Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Morikami Museum & Japanese Gardens, Delray Beach, FL

*Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

*Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City

New Orleans Museum of Art

*Pacific Asia Museum, Pasadena, CA

*Philadelphia Museum of Art

Phoenix Art Museum

Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR

Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto

*Arthur M. Sackler Museum for Asian Art, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

Saint Louis Art Museum

Santa Barbara Museum of Art

*Seattle Asian Art Museum

*Smithsonian Institution Freer and Sackler Galleries, Washington, D.C.

Trammel & Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art, Dallas

University of Michigan Museum of Art

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond

Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore