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Kampuchea Chef Khmer Art Overseas: Thursday, April 20, 2023
Khmer Art Overseas:
One of the most diverse museum collections in the United States can be found at the Art Institute of Chicago, and its hoard of nearly thirty Khmer artifacts is especially eclectic in nature. The majority of these pieces were donated to the Chicago museum by the ultra-wealthy husband and wife duo, James and Marilynn Alsdorf, though those in charge at the museum in 1924 managed an audacious addition to their collection, by going to the source of Khmer art, Cambodia, itself. Benefitting from a 14 February 1923 decision by the École française d'Extrême-Orient to sell off so-called lower-grade artifacts of little scientific or artistic nature, in order to raise much-needed funds, the museum directly purchased four artworks which they still hold today. The pieces are a Deva head from one of the gates of Angkor Thom, a female bust, a full-body Avalokiteshvara and the head of a male deity. What we would call nowadays, an absolute steal. As for EFEO’s decision to sell off Cambodia’s cultural heritage piece by piece, in the 1930s the quality of the sculptures sold increased dramatically with exquisite pieces being sold to museums such as the Metropolitan in New York and the Brussels Art Museum in Belgium.
The next question that readily springs to mind when looking at the collection in Chicago is how and where did the Alsdorfs assemble their personal stockpile of Khmer art. The couple began collecting in the 1950s and were long-time patrons of the Art Institute, where James Alsdorf served as Chairman from 1975 to 1978. Over some years, part of their collection was donated to the Art Institute and part given on long-term loan. As for the public sale of their remaining collection, 120 museum-quality works in 2011 raised nearly USD$ 4.5 million. As for the provenance of the Alsdorf-donated pieces, none of that has been made public by the museum, suggesting the less said, the better as far as they are concerned. Aside from the four artworks sold to the Art Institute by EFEO, there must be a big question mark over the legality of the remainder of the Chicago-based collection and how they come to be so far from their spiritual home in Cambodia. The Art Institute is the second-largest art museum in the United States, after the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, with nearly 300,000 pieces in its permanent collection, of which 35,000 objects are in their Asian section.
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