Asian Art Team

Qamar Adamjee, an art historian of the Islamic world and the Indian subcontinent (NYU IFA 2011) and a former research assistant in the Islamic department (2000–2008), returns to The Met in a new role. Qamar was a provenance researcher for the South Asian collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art (2022–2024) and before that, associate curator of South Asian and Islamic art at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco (2009–2020). In her current position with the Asian department, Qamar looks forward to applying her academic, curatorial, institutional, and provenance research experiences to The Met collection.

Imtikar Ally has worked at The Met since 1990. He joined the department in 2005.

Kurt Behrendt has been at The Met since 2006. He has curated a series of exhibitions, including Bodhisattvas of Wisdom, Compassion and Power (2021), Seeing the Divine: Pahari Painting of North India (2018), Tibet and India (2014), and Buddhism along the Silk Road (2012), and has published widely on the Buddhist art of the Indian subcontinent. Ongoing field research in India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Tibet provides a foundation for his exhibitions and publications. His 1997 PhD from UCLA was published as the book The Buddhist Architecture of Gandhara (Leiden: Brill, 2004).

Monika Bincsik specializes in Japanese decorative arts and textile. From 2008 to 2009 she was a Jane and Morgan Whitney Research Fellow at The Met. Later she worked as a research assistant at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, where she earned a second PhD on Japanese lacquers. From 2013 to 2015 she was an Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow at The Met, and became Assistant Curator in 2015 then Diane and Arthur Abbey Associate Curator in 2019. She was co-curator of Kimono: A Modern History (2014) and curated Discovering Japanese Art: American Collectors and The Met (2015), Japanese Bamboo Art: The Abbey Collection (2017), and Kyoto: Capital of Artistic Imagination (2019). She has published widely on decorative arts and collecting history.

John T. Carpenter has been with The Met since 2011. From 1999 to 2011, he taught the history of Japanese art at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and served as head of the London office of the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures. He has published widely on Japanese art, especially in the areas of calligraphy, painting, and woodblock prints, and has helped organize numerous exhibitions at the Museum, including Designing Nature (2012–13), Brush Writing in the Arts of Japan (2013–14), Celebrating the Arts of Japan (2015–17), The Poetry of Nature (2018–2019), and The Tale of Genji: A Japanese Classic Illuminated (2019).

Alison Clark joined the department in 2006. She works with The Met's databases, monitors gallery/storage climate, handles preventive conservation projects, and conducts provenance research. Alison also coordinates object photography, some exhibitions and loans, and department website content. She participates in The Met's Collection Care Group and the Time-Based Media Working Group. An alumna of Beloit College, she earned a MA in medieval history from Fordham University and a graduate certificate in museum studies from New York University. Her previous experience includes the Merchant's House Museum, the New York Public Library, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

John Guy was senior curator of Indian art at the Victoria and Albert Museum for 22 years prior to joining The Met in 2008. He is an elected fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has served as an advisor to UNESCO. He has conducted extensive field research on Buddhist and Hindu South Asia, and participated in maritime excavations. He has curated numerous exhibitions, including Wonder of the Age: Master Painters of India (2011), Interwoven Globe (2013), Lost Kingdoms: Hindu Buddhist Sculpture of Early Southeast Asia (2014), The Lion Avatar in Indian Temple Drama (2016), Y. G. Srimati and the Indian Style (2017), and Crowns of the Vajra Masters: Ritual Art of Nepal (2018).

Djamel Haoues joined the department in 2021.

Maxwell K. (Mike) Hearn joined The Met in 1971 to help oversee the expansion of the Chinese art collection and the addition of new exhibition spaces. Since 2011 he has served as department chair. Mike has curated more than fifty exhibitions, authored or contributed to numerous catalogues, and taught graduate and undergraduate seminars on Chinese painting at Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and the New York University Institute of Fine Arts. He earned his BA from Yale University and his PhD from Princeton University, and was elected fellow at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2014.

Yuan-li Hou joined the department in 2003. A leader in The Met's Asian Art Conservation Studio, she is responsible for restoring and remounting fragile or damaged works, as well as training students in traditional remounting techniques. Yuan-li has forty-one years of experience as a conservator. She trained and worked at The Palace Museum from 1975 to 1985 and, after immigrating to the United States in 1986, she worked as a restoration consultant for both private collectors and cultural institutions. She was a conservation specialist at the Freer and Sackler Galleries from 1998 to 2000.

Mary Hurt joined the Department of Asian Art in October 2016. Mary provides essential support to the administrative and curatorial staff, acting as the primary point of contact between the department and the public, and assisting with exhibition logistics. Mary graduated with her BA from Sarah Lawrence College in 2013. Prior to joining The Met, she worked for three years as the personal assistant to a seasoned painter and an independent curator, providing support in catalogue production and exhibition coordination. She has also written and edited copy for several galleries and artists.

Eleanor Soo-ah Hyun joined The Met in September 2019. From 2015 to 2019, she worked at the British Museum as their first Curator for the Korean Collections. She returns to the department after being a Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellow in 2013 and 2014. She is also a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago researching late imperial Joseon Korean and Qing Chinese art.

Sooyoung Jeon joined the department on October 31, 2022, transferring from The’s Met’s Security team, where she served as a Security Officer for eight years.

Jessica Kuhn joined the department in 2014. She provides administrative support and coordination for all exhibitions in the Japanese and Korean galleries. She also processes some of the department's outgoing loans, researches provenance for works in the Japanese collection, photographs artworks for the online collection, and is the IPM point person for the department. She has a BFA in photography and an MA in arts administration. Previous experience includes working in contemporary art galleries and the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco.

Shi-yee Liu received her PhD from Yale University in 2003. She wrote her dissertation on the artist Chen Hongshou (1599–1652) and has published on the artist consistently since then. Focusing on traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy, she has authored an exhibition catalogue and a wide range of English and Chinese articles that examine artworks from an interdisciplinary angle. Curator of the exhibition Show and Tell: Stories in Chinese Painting (2016–17), she also participates in other exhibition projects and publishes the documentation of Chinese paintings and calligraphies on the Museum's website.

Pengliang Lu joined the Museum in 2013 as Henry A. Kissinger Curatorial Fellow. He has curated various exhibitions on Chinese decorative arts, including Spirited Creatures: Animal Representations in Chinese Silk and Lacquer (2017–2018), and Children to Immortals: Figural Representations in Chinese Art (2018–2021). From 2002 to 2008, he worked at the Shanghai Museum. Pengliang has published widely on metal works, ceramics, textiles, and literati objects. He is also a PhD candidate at the Bard Graduate Center, conducting research on Chinese bronzes and antiquarianism of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Jennifer Perry joined The Met in 2010 to oversee treatment and preservation of the Japanese paintings collections. After completing an MA in art history and an advanced certificate in conservation at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University in 1993, she received her training at the Yamaguchi Bokunindo Studio and the Oka Bokkodo Co. Ltd. in Japan, where she worked on numerous Designated Cultural Properties. Prior to joining The Met, she worked at the Cleveland Museum of Art where, as associate conservator, she established the studio for Asian paintings conservation.

Beatrice Pinto was hired as a security officer at The Met in June 1997. In October 1998, she was promoted to assistant maintainer for the department of lighting and design; she joined the Department of Asian Art as a technician in May 1999. Beatrice received a promotion to senior technician in 2001 and to supervising technician in 2005. As one of a team of four, she is responsible for the handling, installation, and de-installation of all works of art in the department's galleries, as well as for gallery rotations and exhibitions.

Joseph Scheier-Dolberg has been working at The Met since January 2013. The exhibitions he has curated include The Art of the Chinese Album (2014) and Streams and Mountains without End: Landscape Traditions of China (2017–18). Joseph has published on a wide range of subjects, including the Qing imperial art collection, contemporary ink painting, the history of Chinese albums, and the appreciation of rocks in premodern China.

Zhixin Jason Sun joined The Met in 1999. His most recent exhibitions include Age of Empires: Art of the Qin and Han Dynasties (2017), A Passion for Jade: Heber Bishop and His Collection (2016) and Colors of the Universe: Chinese Hardstone Carving (2012–2015). He has published and lectured widely on Chinese art, especially in the areas of jade carving, metalwork, calligraphy, and archaeology.

Jacqueline Taeschler has been working at The Met since 1975. For twenty-five years, she worked in the reproduction studio, reproducing objects from the Museum's sculpture collection for merchandising in The Met Store. After the studio closed, she came to work in the Department of Asian Art, where she maintains the collection database and prepares paperwork for acquisitions, departmental loans, and special exhibitions. She received her BFA from The Cooper Union.

Kewei Wang joined The Met in 2013. She restores fragile or damaged works, and trains students in traditional techniques of remounting. Kewei has forty years of experience in the conservation of Chinese painting. She trained and worked at The Palace Museum from 1976 to 1989. Later, she served as conservator of Asian and Western artworks on paper at The Hai Yan Institute for Conservation of Works of Art in Germany from 1989 to 1993 and senior conservator of Asian painting at the University of Michigan Museum of Art from 1996 to 2013, where she conserved Asian paintings from the university museum as well as from other American museums.

Masanobu Yamazaki is responsible for the Museum's Japanese paintings collection. Before coming to The Met in 2015, he spent fifteen years as a conservator of Japanese paintings for Oka Bokkodo Co. Ltd., one of the premier conservation studios in Japan. He has also worked on special projects for The British Museum and The Museo Nacional de Soares dos Reis in Porto, Portugal. As an affiliate with the Association for the Conservation of National Treasures in Japan, he has worked on national treasures and important cultural properties for institutions throughout Japan.

Hwai-ling Yeh-Lewis oversees the storage and care of over 35,000 works in the Asian Art collection. This includes all administration procedures related to acquisitions, incoming and outgoing loans, the collection database, exhibitions, and collection inventory. She also manages internal and external requests for access to the collections, and works with the collections team to facilitate gallery installations and implement the highest standards for collection care. She received her MS in education from Indiana University.

Edmon Zhou joined the Department of Asian Art in 2022. As an Associate for Administration, he handles daily administrative operations such as public inquiries, travel, and is the procurement ambassador for the department. He is returning to the Met after his prior work as an intern in the Department of European Paintings. He is expecting to graduate with his MA in museum studies from New York University in 2023. He received his BA with a double major in anthropology and biology and a minor in art history from SUNY University at Buffalo.

Jianxiang Zhou joined the Department of Asian Art as Assistant Conservator for Chinese paintings in September 2018. A graduate of the College of Art and Science at Beijing Union University, he trained and worked at the Palace Museum from 2012 to 2018, where his work played a vital role in the restoration and remounting of Chinese paintings and calligraphy. Jianxiang will train and work closely with master conservators Yuan-li Hou and Kewei Wang.