Staff Awards and Honors

Louise Cort Receives the 2012 Secretary’s Distinguished Research Lecture Award

Freer|Sackler Curator of Ceramics Louise Allison Cort has been named the 12th recipient of the Distinguished Research Lecture Award. This honor recognizes a scholar’s sustained achievement in research, longstanding investment in the Smithsonian, outstanding contribution to a field, and ability to communicate research to a non-specialist audience. In this instance, it celebrates how Cort has shared knowledge gained through scholarly research.

In this spirit, on Wednesday, January 23, 2013, Cort presents a lecture titled People Making Pots: Connecting Present and Past in Japan, India, and Mainland Southeast Asia at 2 pm in the Freer’s Meyer Auditorium. A reception follows.

With the Smithsonian since 1981, Cort’s interests include historical and contemporary ceramics in Japan and South and Southeast Asia, Japanese baskets and textiles, and the Japanese tea ceremony. Since 1989—in collaboration with cultural anthropologist Leedom Lefferts, research associate in the National Museum of Natural History’s Department of Anthropology—Cort has documented present-day village-based production of earthenware and stoneware ceramics in Mainland Southeast Asia. The project received major support from the Nishida Memorial Foundation for Research in Asian Ceramic History and a Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Studies grant.

Cort is the author of Shigaraki, Potters’ Valley, published in 1979 and reprinted in 2000. In 2008 she prepared (with George Ashley Williams IV and David P. Rehfuss) the online catalogue Ceramics in Mainland Southeast Asia: Collections in the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. Her study on Indian earthenware, Temple Potters of Puri, was published in 2012, the same year that Cort received the 33rd Koyama Fujio Memorial Prize for her research on historical Japanese ceramics.

For the Distinguished Research Lecture Award, Cort was selected from finalists recommended by a committee representing research areas across the spectrum of Smithsonian scholarship. This year’s committee included Adrienne Kaeppler (NMNH); Bert Drake (SERC); Cynthia Mills (SAAM); David DeVorkin, chair (NASM); Giovanni Fazio (SAO); Jason Stieber (AAA); Katherine Ott (NMAH); Kenneth Slowik (NMAH); Tom Crouch (NASM); and William Wcislo (STRI).

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Smithsonian Spotlight: Secretary’s research Prize, 2011

Massumeh Farhad, Chief Curator and Curator of Islamic Art
John Winter, Conservation and Scientific Research

The Secretary’s Research Prize is awarded to Smithsonian employees who have done exemplary work in publications, exhibitions, or other research. Ten prizes are awarded every year. The Freer and Sackler Galleries are proud to announce that two staff members were awarded the 2011 prize. Massumeh Farhad has been honored for her extraordinary work on the exhibition Falnama: The Book of Omens (2009–2010), which she curated along with guest curator Serpìl Bağci. The exhibition illuminated the mysteries of the Falnama: 16th- and 17th-century Iranian and Turkish manuscripts that were used to tell fortunes and gaze into the unknown. John Winter has been posthumously awarded the prize for his book East Asian Paintings: Materials, Structures and Deterioration Mechanisms. His research focuses on the historical techniques of painting in Japan, China, and Korea.

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Smithsonian Spotlight: Peacock Room Wins Cine Award

The Smithsonian Channel film on the Freer Gallery’s Peacock Room, featuring an interview with associate curator of American art Lee Glazer, won the fall 2011 Cine Golden Eagle Award. Recognized as a mark of excellence throughout the film and television industry for over 50 years, this award is given biannually to films that are innovative in structure and that demonstrate overall distinction.

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James T. Ulak, senior curator of Japanese art

James T. Ulak has been awarded the Order of the Rising Sun by the Japanese government. The honor recognizes Ulak's significant contributions toward strengthening bilateral relations and building collaboration between public and private fine arts institutions in Japan and the United States, resulting in the sophisticated presentation of Japanese visual culture in both countries. The award was conferred in a private ceremony at the Japanese ambassador's residence in Washington, D.C., on July 6, 2010.
Press Release
The Torch article

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Debra Diamond, associate curator of South and Southeast Asian art

Debra Diamond was recognized with two major awards for her work on the exhibition catalogue Garden and Cosmos: The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur. In February 2010 she was awarded the Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Award from the College Art Association, the professional organization for faculty and museum curators in art history and the visual arts. This award, established in 1980 in honor of the founding director of the Museum of Modern Art, is presented to the author(s) of an especially distinguished catalogue in the history of art, and is CAA's highest award for museum scholarship.

In September 2010 Debra was awarded the Smithsonian Secretary's Research Prize for Garden and Cosmos. This prize recognizes excellence across the Smithsonian; just ten are awarded each year.

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Freer | Sackler Publications

Freer and Sackler publications have won an impressive number of awards, examples of which are listed below.

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Falnama: The Book Of Omens

Authors: Massumeh Farhad and Serpil Bagci
Designer: Robert Wiser
Marketing: Nancy Hacskaylo
Publication date: 2009

Named one of the best art books of 2010 by The Art Newspaper

First Place, 2010 AAM Museum Publications Design Competition
Exhibition Catalogues
Marketing/Public Relations Materials

Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington 61st Annual Show
Catalogues

Washington Book Publishers
Third place, small/medium nonprofit publishers, illustrated text

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Freer|Sackler Calendar of Events

Designer: Adina Brosnan-McGee

First place, 2009 AAM Museum Publications Design Competition
Calendars of Events

2009 Silver Light Bulb Award, Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington
Annual show selection

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Garden and Cosmos: The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur

Authors: Debra Diamond, Catherine Glynn, and Karni Singh Jasol
Designer: Kelly Webb
Publication date: 2008

Smithsonian Institution Secretary's Research Prize
September 2010

2010 Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Award, College Art Association
Exhibition Catalogues

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The Tsars and the East: Gifts from Iraq and Turkey in the Moscow Kremlin

Authors: Elena Yurievna Gagarina, Rudi Matthee, and the curators of the Moscow Kremlin
Designer: Marty Ittner
Publication date: 2009

First Prize, 2010 AAM Museum Publications Design Competition
Hardcover and paperback

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ASIATICA 2010

Editor: Howard Kaplan
Designer: Kelly Doe

First Prize, 2012 AAM Museum Publications Design Competition
Magazines

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Asiatica 2009

Editor: Howard Kaplan
Designer: Kelly Doe

Annual Reports, 2010 AAM Museum Publications Design Competition

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Asia After Dark 2009

Designer: Nancy Hacskaylo

Honorable Mention, 2010 AAM Museum Publications Design Competition
Posters

Honorable Mention, 2010 AAM Museum Publications Design Competition
Marketing/public relations materials

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Gods of Angkor: Bronzes from the National Museum of Cambodia

Designer: Adina Brosnan-McGee

First place, 2011 AAM Museum Publications Design Competition
Exhibition catalogues

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AN EVENING IN WHISTLER'S PEACOCK ROOM

Designer: Adina Brosnan-McGee

2012 Silver Light Bulb Award, Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington

Second Prize, 2012 AAM Museum Publications Design Competition
Invitations to Events

Art Directors Club of Washington 63rd Annual Show

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STATIONERY AND LETTERHEAD

Designer: Reid Hoffman

Art Directors Club of Washington 63rd Annual Show