A Japanese Art Journey, a talk by Meher McArthur (1986)

Japanese art historian and curator Meher McArthur (1986) was born in India to a Scottish father and Persian mother and grew up in Scotland, Canada, and England, feeling very out of place. Hoping to go into international business, she studied Japanese at Emmanuel and then lived for two years in Japan, where she fell in love with the country’s art and changed the direction of her life. She became a Japanese art historian, moved to Pasadena, California, where she was a curator at Pacific Asia Museum for 8 year, and has been passionately curating Japanese art exhibitions in museums and galleries and for national tour for over 25 years.

In her new memoir, A Japanese Art Journey: A Curator’s Memoir of Polka Dot Pumpkins, Paper Dolls and Woodblock Prints (Tuttle, 2025), Meher shares her journey through the extraordinary world of Japanese art — from ceramics, swords, prints and textiles to Buddhist art, folk painting, contemporary art, and animation. In this talk based on her memoir, she will demonstrate the power of art, not only to inspire but to illuminate one's place in the world.

This talk will be hosted by Rosanna Moseley Gore (1979). There will be time for questions and discussion after Meher's talk.