Japanese
Yayoi period
Yayoi period
Jar with fish decoration, 300 B.C. – A.D. 300
Earthenware
h. 33.0 cm., diam. 28.0 cm. (13 x 11 in.)
Museum purchase with funds given by Duane Wilder, Class of 1951, through the Irvine Foundation (y1985-8 )
photo: Bruce M. White
James Christen Steward
photo: Andrea Kane
James Christen Steward joined the Princeton University Art Museum as its director in April 2009. Prior to that time, he served for 11 years as Director of the University of Michigan Museum of Art where he was also Professor in the Department of the History of Art. He is an experienced museum professional with 20 years of service to the field, including work as Chief Curator of the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum.
As director of the University of Michigan Museum of Art, Steward oversaw the successful completion of a $98 million campaign, and originated and oversaw the design and construction of a $41.9 million expansion and restoration of the Museum's facility. The 100,000 square foot Museum reopened in March 2009.
Steward holds a doctorate in the History of Art from Trinity College, Oxford University, where he studied with the leading art historian Francis Haskell. He received his undergraduate degree in History, French, and Art History from the University of Virginia, and began his graduate career at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.
Professor Steward is an active scholar and art historian who has edited or authored a number of significant volumes. He is the sole author of The New Child: British Art and the Origins of Modern Childhood, 1730-1830 (1995), and has served as editor of and contributor to major exhibition catalogues including Betye Saar: Extending the Frozen Moment (2006); The Collections of the Romanovs: European Art from the State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg (2003); When Time Began to Rant & Rage: Figurative Painting from Twentieth-Century Ireland (1998); and The Mask of Venice: Masking, Theater, and Identity in the Art of Tiepolo and His Times (1996). Steward’s research interests include 18th-century European art, architecture, and landscape. He is currently writing a volume on the place of the modern-day museum in American civic life.
