Laurence Chalfant Stevens Sickman (1907–1988) was an American academic, art historian, sinologist and Director of the

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is an art museum in Kansas City, Missouri, known for its encyclopedic collection of art from nearly every continent and culture, and especially for its extensive collection of Asian art. In 2007, ''Time'' magaz ...

in Kansas City.

Education

As a high school student, Sickman became interested in Japanese and Chinese art. In 1930, he earned a degree in the field at Harvard, where he also became fluent in Chinese. He traveled throughout China under the newly formed Harvard-Yenching Fellowship,Monuments Men Foundation
Monuments Men> Sickman, Maj. Laurence.
purchasing Chinese paintings, sculpture and furniture for collection and study at the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of the Nelson-Atkins Museum. He traveled on a scholarship to China, where he met

Langdon Warner Langdon Warner (1881–1955) was an American archaeologist and art historian specializing in East Asian art. He was a professor at Harvard and the Curator of Oriental Art at Harvard’s Fogg Museum. He is reputed to be one of the models for Ste ...

, his former Harvard professor and one of the trustees of the Nelson museum, which was being established. Warner, who had been appointed to build a collection for the museum, initially tutored Sickman. Sickman was later given the responsibility of buying works on his own by means of a $11 million donation by Kansas City Star founder William Rockhill Nelson.

Career

In 1931, Sickman joined the staff of the

. In 1935, he became the curator of Oriental Art at the museum. His museum curatorial career was interrupted by military service in the Second World War.

Honors

In 1973, Sickman was awarded the

Charles Lang Freer Medal The Charles Lang Freer medal was established in 1956 by the Smithsonian Institution in honor of Charles Lang Freer, the founder of the Freer collection. The medal is conferred intermittently, honoring distinguished career contributions made by ...

World War II

Sickman's war service took him to

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

during the occupation of Japan where he served as one of the "

Monuments Men A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, hist ...

" under General Douglas MacArthur's Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) section. Among those serving with Sickman in Tokyo were Sherman Lee and Patrick Lennox Tierney.Consulate General of Japan, Los Angeles
Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon (3rd class).

Curatorship after World War II

At war's end, he returned to the Nelson-Atkins museum, where he was director from 1953 through 1977.

Selected works

In a statistical overview derived from writings by and about Laurence Sickman, OCLC/

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the O ...

encompasses roughly 50+ works in 90+ publications in 4 languages and in 3,000+ library holdings.WorldCat
Sickman, L. C. S. (Laurence C. S.)
/ref> * 1956 – ''The Art and Architecture of China'' (with

Alexander Coburn Soper Alexander Coburn Soper III (February 18, 1904 – January 13, 1993) was an American art historian who specialized in Asian art. He was a longtime editor of the journal '' Artibus Asiae'' and professor at the Institute of Fine Arts of New York Un ...

). Baltimore, Maryland:

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year. OCLC 192176467

Notes

References

* American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in War Areas. (1946). ''Report.'' Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. * *

External links

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

(

Oregon Public Broadcasting Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) is the primary television and radio public broadcasting network for most of the U.S. state of Oregon as well as southern Washington. OPB consists of five full-power television stations, dozens of VHF or UHF tra ...

)
"The Rape of Europa."
2006 film, aired November 24, 2008 * Monuments Men Foundation
Monuments Men> Sickman, Maj. Laurence
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sickman, Laurence 1988 deaths 1907 births Harvard University alumni American art historians American art curators American sinologists Art and cultural repatriation after World War II Directors of museums in the United States Monuments men 20th-century American historians American male non-fiction writers 20th-century American male writers