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The project is funded with donations and grants from Nanjing University Education Foundation (American NJUEF), the U.S. embassy in Beijing, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, and other supporters. The project will continue to identify and procure books and other artifacts to support studies in American art history at ISAAC. Your generous support is greatly appreciated.

Acquisition of the Gerdts American Art Library at ISAAC

Nanjing University Education Foundation successfully acquired the Gerdts Library in Boston housing over ten thousand volumes dedicated to American art. It was subsequently transported to the School of Arts, Institute for the Study of American Art in China (ISAAC), Nanjing University, during 2022 - 2023.

On October 19, 2023, Scott Walker, the U.S. Consul General in Shanghai, and his delegation including Michael Bowerbank and Stacey Chen, visited Nanjing University. Consul General Scott Walker, together with Associate Vice President of NJU Ding Aijun, and professors of the School of Arts, Zhao Kuiying, Zhou Xian, Gao Xin, officially opened the “Richard Brettell’s Memorial Reading Room”, where the books from the Gerdts library are arranged in shelves for public use.

The project was supported with grants from the Nanjing University Education Foundation US, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, and Terra Foundation.

南京大学获取Gerdts图书馆藏书，成为全球研究美国艺术的重要机构之一

Gerdts图书馆收藏了一万多卷关于美国艺术的书籍。在2022年和2023年期间，得益于南京大学教育基金会的慷慨支持，该批图书成功从波士顿购得，并被运送到了南京大学艺术学院。随着Richard Brettell纪念阅览室的正式开放，来自Gerdts图书馆的书籍已可供公众使用。

2023年10月19日，美国驻上海领事馆总领事Scott Walker、上海领事馆官员 Mike Bowerbank和 Stacey Chen, 南京大学副校长丁爱军以及南京大学艺术学院赵奎英教授,周宪教授、高薪教授等主持了纪念阅览室的开放仪式。

本项目资助：美国南京大学教育基金会、美国驻北京大使馆、美国Amon Carter卡特艺术博物馆、美国Terra基金会。

About ISAAC American Art History and Book Project

The Institute for the Study of American Art in China (ISAAC) began as a three-year partnership program between the School of Arts at the University of Nanjing, the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History at the University of Texas at Dallas and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art. It was founded in 2017 by the late Dr. Richard R. Brettell, Founding Director of the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History at the University of Texas at Dallas.

The late Dr. Richard R. Brettell, guided by Milan R. Hughston, Art Information Specialist and former Chief of Library and Museum Archives at the Museum of Modern Art, have identified a very important library, that of William Henry Gerdts Jr. - an American art scholar, curator, collector and former Professor of Art History at CUNY Graduate Center. William H. Gerdts was the author of over twenty-five books on American art. An expert in American Impressionism, he was also well known for his work on nineteenth-century American still-life painting, of which he was a distinguished collector as well. He was also a bibliophile. An expert recently looked over his personal library of illustrative books on painting, sculpture, and graphic art, and called it the greatest American art library in the world. The Gerdts library would instantly be one of the most important resources for the study of American art anywhere and ISAAC would make an ideal home for it. It counts 10,510 titles in circa 10,800 volumes.

One of the tasks of the Book Project is the acquisition of this important American Art Library to reside in ISAAC headquarters in Nanjing University, making it available to students and scholars in Nanjing University and other academic institutions throughout the nation via a national library network.

“The two most powerful economies of the early 21^st century, the United States of America and China, have long histories of cooperation and cultural/intellectual exchange. Yet, although there are many collections of Chinese art and scholars who study Chinese Art History in the United States, there is a paucity of museum collecting—and academic studying—of American Art in China.” wrote Brettell.

The Institute for the Study of American Art in China (ISAAC) at the University of Nanjing aims to remedy that situation so that, within a generation, there will be a balance of reciprocal collecting and study. Created to increase understanding of American art from the colonial through contemporary periods in China, ISAAC has focused initially on the Art of the United States of America. The University of Nanjing is one of the most distinguished universities in China and, with the former home of Pearl Buck on the campus, has an important history of support for American culture. Along with the Hopkins-Nanjing Center (HNC) founded in 1986 as a multicultural, bilingual educational collaboration between the Johns Hopkins University and Nanjing University, ISAAC is ideally positioned to foster the advanced study of American Art History in China.