Changes

*''Died: 1955''

*''Died: 1955''

Langdon Warner was an American scholar of East Asian art history, famous for his supposed role in persuading the US military to not bomb [[Kyoto]], [[Nara]], and [[Kamakura]] during World War II, but also infamous for his supposed involvement in looting priceless wall paintings from the ancient Chinese Buddhist cave temples at [[Dunhuang]].

Langdon Warner was an American scholar of East Asian art history, famous for his supposed role in persuading the US military to not bomb [[Kyoto]], [[Nara]], and [[Kamakura]] during World War II, but also infamous for his supposed involvement in looting priceless wall paintings and sculptures from the ancient Chinese Buddhist cave temples at [[Dunhuang]] and [[Mogao Caves|Mogao]]. One of the last of the 19th-century-style "scholar adventurers," he played a notable role in the formation of the formal field of study of East Asian art history, and during his time at [[Harvard University]] taught such future prominent scholars as [[Laurence Sickman]] (later of the [[Nelson Atkins Museum]]) and [[Alan Priest]] (later of the [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]]).<ref>Fletcher Coleman, "Beyond the Ivory Tower: The Birth of East Asian Art in the United States through the Lens of Popular Media," paper presented at International Convention of Asia Scholars, 2021.</ref>

The son-in-law of Theodore Roosevelt, Warner worked for a time at the [[Museum of Fine Arts, Boston]], as an assistant to [[Okakura Kakuzo|Okakura Kakuzô]]. The museum then sent him to Japan in [[1907]], where he studied for a time at the [[Tokyo School of Fine Arts]], and began collecting Japanese art objects. Among his travels, he journeyed to Okinawa in November [[1909]], where he bought a number of Okinawan folk art objects, with the intention of selling them either to Harvard's Peabody Museum, or to [[Edward Sylvester Morse]], who might in turn donate or sell them to the [[Peabody-Essex Museum]] in Salem, Massachusetts. In the end, neither Harvard nor Morse were able (or willing) to purchase the 134 Okinawan objects Warner had collected, but they made their way to the Peabody-Essex anyway, after being bought by [[Charles Weld]], who in turn donated them to the Salem museum. Warner gave his daughter ten works of Okinawan textiles which he did not sell to Weld; she later donated them to Harvard's Sackler Museum. During his time in Japan, he also met [[Yanagi Soetsu|Yanagi Sôetsu]], who he later invited to become an art instructor at Harvard.

The son-in-law of Theodore Roosevelt, Warner worked for a time at the [[Museum of Fine Arts, Boston]], as an assistant to [[Okakura Kakuzo|Okakura Kakuzô]]. The museum then sent him to Japan in [[1907]], where he studied for a time at the [[Tokyo School of Fine Arts]], and began collecting Japanese art objects. Among his travels, he journeyed to Okinawa in November [[1909]], where he bought a number of Okinawan folk art objects, with the intention of selling them either to Harvard's Peabody Museum, or to [[Edward Sylvester Morse]], who might in turn donate or sell them to the [[Peabody-Essex Museum]] in Salem, Massachusetts. In the end, neither Harvard nor Morse were able (or willing) to purchase the 134 Okinawan objects Warner had collected, but they made their way to the Peabody-Essex anyway, after being bought by [[Charles Weld]], who in turn donated them to the Salem museum. Warner gave his daughter ten works of Okinawan textiles which he did not sell to Weld; she later donated them to Harvard's Sackler Museum. During his time in Japan, he also met [[Yanagi Soetsu|Yanagi Sôetsu]], who he later invited to become an art instructor at Harvard.