At the same time, Mr. Fontein embarked on a building and renovation program, raising $60 million — an enormous sum at the time — to realize it. Mr. Fontein also oversaw the renovation of the museum’s storage facilities as well as 26 galleries devoted to the Asian art collection, one of the most extensive in the world. “Museums can be monumental structures,” Mr. Fontein told The Boston Globe in 1985. In 1953 he passed his doctoral exams in Chinese and Japanese art and the art and archaeology of Southeast Asia. He was a consultant to the Asian art collection at the Royal Ontario Museum from 1990 to 1995 and, in a similar role at the Rietberg Museum in Zurich, wrote the catalog for the museum’s collection of Southeast Asian art.

Source: New York Times July 04, 2017 02:03 UTC