The Chales Lang Freer House at Wayne State University is pleased to present a lecture by distinguished guest speaker Dr. Chase Roninson, Director, Freer Gallery of Art, National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution

In donating his collection and name to what was to become the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art—now the National Museum of Asian Art—Charles Lang Freer (1854–1919) emerged as the nation’s first great art benefactor and, arguably, the most influential Gilded-Age art collector. 

Born in New York, Freer became a man of Michigan: it was in Detroit that he made his fortune, formed his social and political network, assembled his collection, and built a residence-gallery, which served as a national hub for collectors, curators, and scholars. 

This lecture will shed light on Freer’s profile in Detroit and Detroit’s role in establishing America’s first national art museum.

SPEAKER BIO

Since being named director of the National Museum of Asian Art in 2018, Dr. Robinson has launched initiatives to significantly increase visitors on-site and online, expand the collections by over 5,400 works, build networks of community-based and international partnerships, establish the museum at the forefront of provenance research, and nearly double the size of its board of trustees. The museum celebrated its centennial in 2023, inaugurating its first celebration of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with more than 40,000 people attending. 

A highly regarded scholar of Islamic history and culture, Dr. Robinson received his doctorate from Harvard University’s Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations.  He served as provost and then president of the Graduate Center at the City University of New York. Dr. Robinson was also a professor of early Islamic history in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Oxford.