Qualla: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown artist, Public domain. Most of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery is invisible. Stand in the Enid A. Haupt Victorian Garden on the south side of the National Mall, look around at the boxwoods and the granite parterres, and the museum is below your feet - 115,000 square feet of galleries, study rooms, and underground storage, with only a small pink-and-gray granite pavilion above ground for the entrance. The architects, Jean Paul Carlhian and his team at Shepley Bulfinch, were asked to put the Smithsonian's new Asian art museum on the South Quadrangle of the Mall without disturbing the historic sight lines of the Castle, the Arts and Industries Building, and the Freer Gallery. They did. Walk down the steps into the pavilion on a quiet morning, and the noise of Independence Avenue disappears within five paces. You are below grade. The art is older than the city.

Image: Unknown artist | Public domain

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery: A Prime Minister's Million

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Another Believer, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Sackler Gallery began with a visit by Japanese Prime Minister Masayoshi Ōhira to the Freer Gallery of Art in 1979. The Freer, opened on the Mall in 1923 and named for Detroit railroad-car manufacturer Charles Lang Freer, held one of the great American collections of Asian art...

Image: Another Believer | CC BY-SA 3.0

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery: Underground Architecture

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown artist, Public domain. Carlhian's design solved a difficult site problem. The Smithsonian's leadership wanted the new Asian and African art museums to share a campus on the South Quadrangle behind the Castle, but the surface space was already occupied by the historic Haupt Garden. The solution was to p...

Image: Unknown artist | Public domain

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery: The Collections

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Missvain, CC BY 4.0. Sackler's founding gift included Chinese ritual bronzes, Buddhist sculpture, Iranian and Mughal manuscripts, Indian paintings, Japanese woodblock prints, and ceramics from across Asia. The museum has expanded the collection steadily since. In 1986 the Sackler acquired the Vever C...

Image: Missvain | CC BY 4.0

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery: What the Name Means Now

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit ajay_suresh, CC BY 2.0. In 2018, protesters began appearing in the Sackler Gallery's lobby. The Sackler family's pharmaceutical company, Purdue Pharma, had aggressively marketed the opioid OxyContin starting in the late 1990s, contributing to an addiction epidemic that has killed hundreds of thousands o...

Image: ajay_suresh | CC BY 2.0