SEARCH THE SMITHSONIAN LIBRARIES CATALOG
Note: The Freer and Sackler Library's online catalog has been merged with the Smithsonian Institution Library's catalog at http://siris-libraries.si.edu/#focus.
The library, one of the finest Asian art libraries in the United States, contains over 80,000 volumes. About half of these publications are in Chinese or Japanese. While the collection is predominantly on Asian art and archaeology, it also acquires items relating to the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American painters whose works are in the Freer Gallery of Art.
The library reading room is open without appointment from 10 am to 5 pm, Monday through Friday, except on federal holidays. It is located on the second floor (room 2058) of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, which is next door to the Freer Gallery of Art.
Telephone: (202) 633.0477 (Reading Room)
Fax: (202) 786.2936
Collection Highlights
The library's collection is especially strong in research materials on Japanese ceramics, painting, and woodblock prints. It also has an excellent collection of resources for the study of Chinese painting, calligraphy, ceramics, jade, Buddhist sculpture, and ancient bronzes. Its strengths in the area of ancient Near Eastern art are Sassanian metalwork, ceramics, and cylinder seals. The library also has an exceptional collection of material on Indian miniature painting and sculpture as well as on Islamic metalwork, ceramics, glass, and the arts of the book.
Special Collections
- Japan Art Catalog Project Collection
The library serves as the U.S. depository library for the Japan Art Catalog Project. In this program, established by the Japan Association for Cultural Exchange with support from the Japan Foundation, art exhibition catalogs from Japan are given to the library to enable their use by the American public. These catalogs are available through interlibrary loan.
- Rare Book Collection
The library also has a rare book collection, highlights of which include Edo-period Japanese woodblock printed books, Chinese books published in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and the Paul Marks Collection of research material on the American painter James McNeill Whistler.
- Conservation Library
Housed separately in the Freer Gallery of Art is a collection of research materials on the conservation and restoration of Asian art.
Complementary Collections
The Smithsonian American Art Museum library has material related to the American artists represented in the Freer Gallery of Art's collection. The National Museum of African Art library has works on Islamic art for those whose interest in this topic is broader than the geographic area represented by material in the Freer and Sackler library collection. The Anthropology Library has an Asian culture collection, including folkloric, linguistic, and ethnographic materials that the Freer and Sackler library does not collect.
