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CHARLES L. FREER,
Trailblazing Asian Art Collector
By Helen Nebeker Tomlinson
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"West Meets East is prodigiously researched, but more important it is engaging, readable, and well-written."
Morris Rossabi
Distinguished Professor
City University of New York |
"West Meets East is a must read for those who want to learn more about the Gilded Age. Tomlinson’s compelling account draws on the conflicted life and complex relationships of an astute American businessman whose Asian art collection became the core of the Smithsonian’s The Freer Gallery of Art"
Susan A. Hobbs
Director of The Thomas Wilmer Dewing
Catalogue Raisonné |
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Art is a thing of use made beautiful.
Charles L. Freer
This engrossing biography of Charles L. Freer traces his journey from his humble childhood in rural New York to his industrial career in the rapidly growing Detroit of the 1880s. Drawing on Freer’s diaries and letters, it describes his adventures around the world in search of art. The extraordinary artworks he amassed formed the core of what became one of America’s first national art museums—the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. |
Freer made his fortune building railroad cars. When he retired from business at age forty-five, he set out to create a world-class art collection that combined the ancient arts of Asian with American paintings of his own Gilded Age. He gathered the largest collection of artworks by his feisty friend, James McNeill Whistler, whose love of Asian art inspired Freer. |
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A self-made man who never progressed beyond the eighth grade, Charles Freer had a keen eye for quality and a passion for learning. His search for Asian art led him from Egypt and Syria to the temples of Japan and the remote interiors of China. |
Fiercely independent and intensely curious, he traveled for months often over rough seas and treacherous mountain passes. He befriended Arab traders, Chinese mandarins, and Japanese rickshaw runners. |
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Blazing a trail where few others ventured, Freer became a renown connoisseur of ancient Asian art. He left a legacy that has been enjoyed by generations of visitors. The Freer Gallery of Art is today as trailblazing as the man who created it one hundred years ago. |