Look Close, Think Far

This richly illustrated volume introduces one of America’s finest university art museums – one whose directors, curators, donors, and patrons have left a remarkable legacy, a museum collection that encourages us all to “lookclose, think far.” The selection of over 280 highlights is presented with brief commentaries and an essay that traces the growth of the Ackland Art Museum’soutstanding collection.The Ackland Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is one of the United States’ most distinguished public university art museums. Founded in 1958, it now houses over 20,000 works of art, covering some 5,000 years of cultures from around the globe.“Look Close, Think Far” is the tagline of the Ackland, informing everything fromthe dynamic and varied program of special exhibitions to ambitious interpretation,education, and outreach activities. It applies especially strongly to the museum’sextensive permanent collection. Although an integral part of the oldest publicuniversity in the United States, the Ackland is a relatively young institution. Nowapproaching its sixty-fifth year, it has become the proud steward of over 20,000works of art from an impressively broad range of world cultures and time periods.The Museum is known for its special strengths in art of the European tradition, withvery strong holdings in prints and drawings; the arts of Asia, and especially China,Japan, and India; a small but fine collection of classical art from Africa; and recentand contemporary art.This publication showcases a cross-section though the diverse collection, with283 works, giving an impression of the Ackland’s permanent collection that is trueto its character, representative of its breadth, and indicative of its quality. The essaygives special attention to the early stages and the less obvious, more idiosyncraticmoments that have contributed to the Ackland’s personality and individuality.The approach taken by the editor Peter Nisbet, deputy director for curatorialaffairs at the Ackland, differs from most conventional volumes of museum collectionhighlights in several refreshing ways. Instead of separating works along the lines ofcuratorial departments, the arrangement emphasizes the unity of the collection bymerging works from different cultures. These are presented in a largely chronologicalsequence, but one that surprises by starting with the present and extending back intime. Within this order, works of art are deliberately paired across individual pageopenings, to stimulate visual attention, reflective thinking, and sometimes maybejust a smile.