Business & Tech

USC and Pasadena's Pacific Asia Museum Announce Partnership

Built in the 1920s by art dealer Grace Nicholson, the museum is a California State Historic Landmark

By City News Service

USC and Pasadena's Pacific Asia Museum announced a partnership Tuesday.

"With its rich history and inspiring works of art, Pacific Asia Museum will be the perfect complement to many academic endeavors at USC," said USC President C. L.  Max Nikias.

Interested in local real estate?Subscribe to Patch's new newsletter to be the first to know about open houses, new listings and more.

"Both of our organizations work to enrich the educational experience, advance art history and preserve the past for future generations. USC is very proud to form a powerful partnership with a local organization that has international appeal and an enduring devotion to promoting the arts."

A USC statement said the partnership would serve to preserve the museum's 1924 Chinese Quink Dynasty-inpired mansion in downtown Pasadena as an art museum and "enhance  the scholarship of the creative faculty and students at USC's six arts schools and those in the departments of Art History, East Asian Language and Cultures, Religion and Archaeology.

Interested in local real estate?Subscribe to Patch's new newsletter to be the first to know about open houses, new listings and more.

"In addition, the alliance will provide a foundation for a renewed museum studies and curatorial training program at USC," it said, adding the museum -- "one of the few U.S. museums dedicated to the arts and culture of Asia and the Pacific Islands" -- would be renamed the USC Pacific Asia Museum.

Built in the 1920s by art dealer Grace Nicholson, the museum is a California State Historic Landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Founded in 1971 and accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, the museum has a collection of more than 17,000 items from across Asia and the Pacific Islands spanning more than 5,000 years.

Prominent holdings include the Harari Collection of Japanese paintings and drawings from the Edo (1600-1868) and Meiji (1868-1912) periods, one of the largest collections of Japanese folk paintings outside Japan, a South Pacific bark cloth collection, collections of Chinese ceramics and textiles, and Buddhist art from throughout Asia.

The museum has organized several groundbreaking exhibitions, including the first North American exhibitions of contemporary Chinese art after the Cultural Revolution and one of the first exhibitions of contemporary Aboriginal art in the United States.

No financial arrangements between the museum and USC were immediately revealed.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here