The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art (NMAA) has appointed Ching-Ling Wang, currently curator at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, as its inaugural Nancy Chang Lee Curator of Chinese Art. Wang will assume the post in November, marking a new chapter for the museum’s Chinese art program.
Experience across collections and continents
Wang studied East Asian art history at National Taiwan University in Taipei and completed a doctorate in the field at Freie Universität Berlin in 2013. His research and publications span Chinese literati painting, Ming and Qing court art, Buddhist iconography, and historical cultural exchanges between Asia and Europe.
From 2015 to 2016, he served as curator of pre-modern Chinese art at Berlin’s Asian Art Museum and managed the Chinese collection at the Ethnological Museum of Berlin. He joined the Rijksmuseum in 2016, where he has served as curator of East Asian Art. His curatorial work has included projects in Taiwan, China, Germany, and the Netherlands, among them:
- Asian Bronze: 4000 Years of Beauty (2024) at the Rijksmuseum
- Goddess of Infinite Faces: Special Exhibition on Taiwan’s Mazu Faith Culture (2026) at the National Taiwan History Museum
Expanding access to a major collection
In a press release, Wang expressed a goal to widen access to the full range of NMAA’s Chinese art holdings, which comprises some 13,000 objects. Through “collaborative pathways across disciplines, institutions and countries,” he aims to deepen contemporary audiences’ understanding and appreciation of the collection.
The position is named for Nancy Chang Lee, an NMAA patron since 2017, who welcomed Wang’s appointment and cited his “commitment to advance the presentation and appreciation of [the museum’s] Chinese art collection beyond walls and borders.”
With Wang’s appointment as the inaugural Nancy Chang Lee Curator of Chinese Art, NMAA signals an emphasis on scholarship and collaboration aligned with the breadth of its Chinese holdings.
