NEW YORK, NY.- The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA) announced jointly today that they are both recipients of transformative bequests of masterworks of Japanese art from the Mary Griggs Burke Collection. With objects spanning more than five millennia, the collection is widely regarded as the finest and most encompassing private collection of Japanese art outside Japan.

Mrs. Burke (1916-2012), who assembled her formidable collection of East Asian art over five decades, announced in 2006 that she would bequeath her Japanese and a smaller collection of Korean works to the two institutions. Overall, the Mary Griggs Burke Collection comprises approximately 1,000 works in various media—more than 850 Japanese works, some 90 Korean pieces, and about 65 Chinese works of art. The core of the collection is Japanese painting, consisting of 450 works in screen, hanging scroll, handscroll, and album formats, and around 40 works of Japanese calligraphy, as well as a small number of ukiyo-e prints and woodblock printed illustrated books. Mrs. Burke’s discerning collecting interests also extended to Buddhist and Shinto statuary, ceramics, and lacquerware. Art through a Lifetime: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection, the recently published two-volume catalogue raisonné edited by Miyeko Murase, is accompanied by an online companion illustrating every work at: burkecollection.org

The Met and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts were informed of the final terms of the gift agreements by the Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation in late February. Mrs. Burke had made the provisions for the division of the collection in 2007; the gift agreements respect her wishes and also include several works subsequently acquired by the Foundation. In addition, each institution will receive a generous cash endowment of $12.5 million, to be used primarily for the purchase of Japanese art and also for the funding of exhibitions, programming, and fellowships. The Foundation further announced that the Chinese paintings and objects from the collection would be presented to the Yale University Art Gallery, and that select contemporary works would be given to the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens in Delray Beach, Florida.

Both the Metropolitan Museum and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts will present major exhibitions of their gifts from the Burke Collection this fall.

Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum, commented: “The vision and generosity of Mary Griggs Burke shine throughout this landmark gift of 320 masterworks of Japanese and Korean art to the Met. She was a consummate collector, trustee, and friend, who selected these superb works with great care to complement and augment our existing holdings. It is inconceivable that a collection comparable to hers could be assembled today. Given their rarity, aesthetic quality, and art historical importance, her gifts raise the level of the Met’s Japanese collection to one of the finest and most comprehensive outside Japan.” The announcement of the works in the bequest coincides with the launch of the Museum’s centenary celebration marking the founding of its Asian Art Department.

“We are thrilled to receive this transformative bequest from Mary Griggs Burke,” said Kaywin Feldman, Duncan and Nivin MacMillan Director and President of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. “The Minneapolis Institute of Arts is one of the nation’s principal repositories of Japanese art. This bequest of nearly 700 objects, from prehistoric to contemporary times, adds exciting depth to our encyclopedic collections. The gift will join the museum's existing Japanese art collection, and we look forward to further enhancing the depth of our installations of Japanese art and culture in our 15 galleries dedicated to Japanese art. This gift is also a testament to the scholarship, research, and focused collecting of Dr. Matthew Welch. Under Matthew's leadership, the significance of the MIA's collection of Japanese and Korean art at the MIA has greatly expanded.”

Matthew Welch, Deputy Director & Chief Curator at the MIA, who knew Mrs. Burke well and visited with her innumerable times for over twenty years, added, “Mrs. Burke was an astute collector, blessed with her own discriminating eye, but also wisely advised in amassing her remarkable collection. The importance of this gift to the MIA cannot be overstated. With this gift, as well as a recently established endowment for Asian art programming and the addition of key staff positions in Japanese art at the MIA, we are poised to become a leading center for the study of Japanese art.”

When finalizing the lists of gifts to the Metropolitan Museum and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Mrs. Burke considered the strengths and weaknesses of each institution’s holdings of Japanese and Korean art. For example, if the Met already had a work of a certain genre or by a particular Japanese artist, that was comparable to one of her own, she opted to give her work to Minneapolis. Similarly, for Korean art, she designated more than 70 ceramic works to be donated to Minneapolis, with none going to the Met, where strong holdings of Korean ceramics already exist.

Highlights Presented to the Met
The Met’s collection of early medieval Buddhist art will be greatly enhanced by a powerful sculpture of the Buddhist protective deity Fudō Myōō by the master sculptor Kaikei (active 1185–1223). Ink paintings of the Muromachi period (1391–1573)—an area of particular strength within the Burke Collection—is represented by Sesson Shūkei’s (1504–89?) Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, which can be viewed as a parody of traditional Chinese themes of individualism and eremitism that resonated in Zen Buddhist circles.

The Burke Collection is also noted for works in every medium illustrating scenes from traditional Japanese narratives. The bold graphic forms of the green willows and golden bridges in the 16th-century Willows and Bridges is thought to represent the bridge over the Uji River, in southeast Kyoto, a site celebrated in Japanese literature. A painting of a courtier traveling through a mountain pass based on an episode from the Tales of Ise, a 10th-century court classic, is by the celebrated 17th-century Kyoto painter Tawaraya Sōtatsu.

Moving to the Edo period (1615–1868), works by great individualist masters of the 18th-century are represented in the collection by superlative works such as White Plum Blossoms and Moon by Itō Jakuchū (1716–1800) and Lions at the Stone Bridge of Tendaisan by Soga Shōhaku (1730–81). Literati art, inspired by Sinophilic ideals, is encapsulated by Gathering at the Orchid Pavilion, a masterpiece of screen painting by Ike Taiga (1723–76) that depicts a legendary poetry party held in ancient China.

Highlights Presented to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts
Among the objects the MIA will receive are stunning ink paintings from Japan’s Muromachi period (1392–1573) showing the bodhisattva Monju by the artist Kichizan Mincho (1352–1431). Other highlights include a 16th-century water jar (mizusashi) known as “Burst Bag” from the kilns in Iga for use in tea ceremony; a pair of folding screens of hollyhocks and plum trees by the artist Ogata Kenzan (1663–1743); a pair of screens of Chinese children playing “crack the whip” and examining an elephant by the eccentric artist Nagasawa Rosetsu (1754–1799); and a luminous 12th-century celadon Korean maebyong vessel inlaid with a pattern of crane amid clouds.

In recognition of Burke’s incredible generosity, Dr. Andreas Marks will be named the Mary Griggs Burke Curator of Japanese and Korean Art. The gift will join the museum's existing Japanese art collection that will rise to 7,700 objects, making it one of the most significant encyclopedic collections of Japanese art in the nation. Annually, the MIA will host the Mary Griggs Burke Lecture.