CLARE POLLARD

Contact
Email: clare.pollard@ashmus.ox.ac.uk
ORCID: 0000-0002-1868-272X

University of Oxford webpages
Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

Biography

Clare is Curator of Japanese Art at the Ashmolean Museum and an associate member of the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. She is responsible for two permanent galleries of Japanese art and has curated 17 temporary exhibitions at the Museum, most recently Kabuki Kimono: Costumes of Bando Tamasaburo (2023-2025), Kabuki Legends: Kappazuri Prints by Takahashi Hiromitsu (2023-2025), and TOKYO: Art & Photography (2021).

Before joining the Ashmolean Museum in 2006 she was Curator of Japanese Art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2004-2006) and Curator of the East Asian Collections at the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin (1998-2004).

At the Chester Beatty Library, she worked on the redisplay of the collections in a new museum building in Dublin Castle, which was awarded the Gulbenkian/Heritage Council Irish Museum of the Year Award 2000 and the European Museum of the Year Award 2002.

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Research

Clare's research has focused mainly on the arts of the Meiji era (1868–1912), in particular Meiji artistic textiles, the work of the versatile potter Miyagawa Kōzan (1842–1916) and artistic exchange between Japan, Europe and Asia in the late 19^thcentury.

She also has an interest in Japanese prints, from surimono privately published poetry prints to the landscapes of Utagawa Hiroshige and the development of Japanese printmaking since the late nineteenth century.