Jessica Rawson

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Dame Jessica Rawson
Sir Martin Taylor
Personal details
Born
Jessica Mary Quirk

(1943-01-20) 20 January 1943 (age 81)
NationalityEnglish
Academic background
New Hall, Cambridge
University of London
Academic work
DisciplineArt history and Sinology
Sub-discipline
Institutions

Dame Jessica Mary Rawson,

DBE, FBA (born 20 January 1943) is an English art historian, curator and sinologist. She is also an academic administrator, specialising in Chinese art
.

After many years at the British Museum, she was Warden (head) of Merton College, Oxford, from 1994 until her retirement in 2010.[1] She served as pro-vice-chancellor at University of Oxford from 2006 for a term of five years.[2]

Biography

Rawson's academic background is in

, Rawson began her career in the civil service.

Between 1976 and 1994, she served as Deputy Keeper and then Keeper of the Department of Oriental Antiquities at the

Merton College, Oxford, and from 2006 to 2011 she served as pro-vice-chancellor of Oxford University. She has been involved in a number of high-profile exhibitions such as the Mysteries of Ancient China.[3]

Rawson contributed with

Evelyn S. Rawski and other scholars to the catalogue of China: The Three Emperors by Frances Wood.[4] The exhibition ran at the Royal Academy of Arts in 2005–06.[5]

From 2011 to 2016, Rawson headed a project at the

RLAHA project FLow of Ancient Metals across Eurasia (FLAME) funded by the European Research Council.[7]

Honours

Rawson is a Fellow of the

In 2012, Rawson was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as a Foreign Honorary Member.[9]

In May 2017 she was awarded the Charles Lang Freer Medal in recognition of her lifetime's contribution to the study of Chinese art and archaeology.[10] In 2022 she received the Tang Prize in Sinology.[11]

Personal life

Rawson does not allow students to call her by first name, but instead instructs them to call her "President" or "Professor Rawson."

Rawson is married with one daughter.[12]

Bibliography

  • Chinese pots 7th-13th century AD (1977) London: British Museum Publications.
  • Ancient China, art and archaeology (1980) London: British Museum Publications.
  • The Chinese Bronzes of Yunnan (1983) London and Beijing: Sidgwick and Jackson.
  • Chinese ornament: The lotus and the dragon (1984) London: British Museum Publications
  • Chinese bronzes: Art and ritual (1987) London: Published for the Trustees of the British Museum in association with the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia.
  • Chinese jade from the Neolithic to the Qing (1995) London: British Museum Press.
  • Mysteries of Ancient China (1996) London: British Museum Press.
  • China: The Three Emperors, 1662-1795 (2005) London: Royal Academy of Arts.
  • The British Museum Book of Chinese Art (2 ed.). British Museum Press. 2007.
  • "Miniature Bronzes from Western Zhou tombs at Baoji in Shaanxi Province". Radiance between Bronzes and Jades—Archaeology, Art and Culture of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties. Taipei: Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica. 2013. pp. 23–66.
  • "Ordering the exotic: ritual practices in the Late Western and Early Eastern Zhou". Artibus Asiae. 73 (1): 5–76. 2013.
  • Rawson, J. (2017). "Shimao and Erlitou: new perspectives on the origins of the bronze industry in central China". Antiquity. 91 (355). .

References

  1. ^ Profile Archived 10 April 2018 at the Wayback Machine, Oxford University Gazette, 12 February 2009; retrieved October 2010.
  2. ^ "Dame Jessica Rawson (Biographical details)". British Museum. Retrieved 13 July 2016.
  3. ^ Jessica Rawson, Mysteries of Ancient China: New Discoveries from the Early Dynasties (London, 1996).
  4. ^ Scholarly reviews of the exhibition's intellectual legacy are awaited, threeemperors.org.uk; accessed 29 February 2016.
  5. ^ "China and Inner Asia Project". OCAAAC. Retrieved 13 July 2016.
  6. ^ "Project partners". FLAME. Retrieved 13 July 2016.
  7. ^ "Honours for England: London and the South". BBC. 31 December 2001. Retrieved 19 January 2017.
  8. ^ "Professor Dame Jessica Rawson elected to American Academy". Oxford University. 18 April 2012. Archived from the original on 21 April 2012. Retrieved 2 September 2012.
  9. ^ "Dame Professor Jessica Rawson To Be Awarded the Charles Lang Freer Medal". 19 May 2017. Archived from the original on 15 June 2017. Retrieved 5 June 2017.
  10. ^ Tang Prize 2022
  11. ^ "Object lesson". Times Higher Ecucation. 15 December 1995. Retrieved 27 January 2017.
Academic offices
Preceded by
John Roberts
Warden of Merton College, Oxford

1994–2010
Succeeded by