VMFA appoints Dr. Wai Yee Chiong as the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Curator of East Asian Art

RICHMOND, VA.— Following an international search, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts announced today that Wai Yee Chiong, Ph.D., will join the museum as its new E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Curator of East Asian Art. She began her work at VMFA on October 10, 2025.

“We are delighted to have someone with Wai Yee’s deep knowledge, thoughtful vision and extensive experience joining the curatorial team at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts,” said Director and CEO Alex Nyerges. “As an accomplished curator with an international reputation in the field, she will advance the curatorial vision for the museum’s renowned collection of East Asian art.”

VMFA’s E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Curator of East Asian Art oversees a collection of more than 2,500 works of Chinese, Japanese and Korean art, including bronzes, ceramics, decorative arts, glass, jades, porcelain and paintings. The position was previously held by Li Jian, who retired in August 2024 after 17 years of distinguished service to VMFA.

“I am excited to join VMFA and work with its esteemed collection of East Asian art,” Dr. Chiong said. “I look forward to the challenge of developing and interpreting the museum’s holdings of Chinese, Japanese and Korean art, and to organizing engaging exhibitions that welcome new audiences and foster different ways of looking at art.”

Most recently, Dr. Chiong was the Curator of Asian Art at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Museum in Providence, where she was responsible for a collection of approximately 4,300 objects. During her seven-year tenure at the RISD Museum, she curated innovative cross-cultural exhibitions, pursued acquisitions that prioritized under-represented makers, developed strategic partnerships and made its collection more accessible to the public through digitization, exhibitions and programs.

Her notable exhibitions at the RISD Museum include Being and Believing in the Natural World (October 22, 2022–June 4, 2023). This groundbreaking exhibition explored human relationships with the natural world through objects from Asia, Indigenous North America and the Ancient Mediterranean. Dr. Chiong played a key curatorial role in Take Care! (August 20, 2022–March 12, 2023), the museum’s first staff-curated exhibition on climate change and sustainability. She also completed biannual rotations of the RISD Museum’s Abby Rockefeller Japanese print collection and participated in the reinstallation of the museum’s contemporary art galleries, engaging artists like Chitra Ganesh and Enrique Chagoya in dialogue to create new presentations of the RISD Museum’s permanent collection.

A contributor to numerous publications, Dr. Chiong’s recent essay “A Century of Collecting for Artists and Designers at the RISD Museum” discusses the history of the museum’s Japanese art collection, shedding light on how successive museum leaders and curators grew and stewarded the direction of the collection. She has lectured and served as a panelist at several symposia, including the Decorative Arts Trust Symposium, Rhode Island School of Design, University of Rhode Island, Brown University, Princeton University, the Newport Art Museum, Zhejiang University Museum of Art and Archaeology (Hangzhou, China) and the International Ukiyo-e Conference (Tokyo, Japan).

Prior to working at the RISD Museum, Dr. Chiong was the Cunningham Curatorial Fellow in Japanese Art at the Harvard Art Museums. She has also taught in the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University and was an intern and curatorial assistant at the Princeton University Art Museum.

Dr. Chiong received her Ph.D. in Art History from Princeton University, specializing in Japanese art. She spent time as a Japan Foundation Fellow at Gakushūin University (Tokyo, Japan) while researching her dissertation on 18th- and 19th-century Japanese paintings. Dr. Chiong received her M.A. in History of Art and Archeology from the School of Oriental and African Studies (London, England) and a B.A. summa cum laude in Economics and Spanish from Middlebury College in Vermont.

Like her predecessor, Li Jian, Dr. Chiong is fluent in a number of languages, including Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), Japanese, Malay, Spanish and English.

“I am elated to welcome Dr. Wai Yee Chiong as the new E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Curator of East Asian Art,” said Artistic Director and Chief Curator Dr. Michael Taylor. “Wai Yee’s curatorial vision, groundbreaking scholarship, and passion for sharing art and culture make her an outstanding addition to our curatorial team. I can’t wait to see the acquisitions, exhibitions and permanent collection displays she makes at VMFA.”