Objects of History: The Boone Collection of Japanese Art

April 9 – June 12, 2005

Often in exhibitions of cultural and historical materials some objects are designated as "art" (e.g. paintings and prints) and others as "material culture" (e.g. textiles and shoes).

This intimate exhibition drew from more than 3,500 Japanese objects in the Boone Collection of the Field Museum in Chicago—traditionally a place for "material culture"—and brought scroll paintings, woodblock prints, and decorative arts objects from the later Edo to Taisho periods (18th–20th centuries) to an art museum context.

Scrutinizing these terms for their aesthetic, cultural, and historical issues, this exhibition examined what this nomenclature tells us about the Boone Collection and museum and collection studies in general.