Image of identity

Toni Scott,US artist.

During a trip in China in the early 1980s, Arthur Sackler first expressed an intention to build a museum at a Chinese university like the one he endowed at Harvard.

"He was incredibly interested in art, museums and education. He had made a lot of different collections, ranging from European paintings, American paintings to Native American art. But his largest collection was the Chinese art, which formed the foundation of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington DC," Jillian Sackler says.

She pushed forward the museum's completion following her husband's death, shortly after the groundwork was laid at Peking University.

"I felt the museum was, as Arthur said, a bridge between peoples. It was an educational contribution. I wanted to complete it because I knew my husband wanted to."

The museum is designed in a Chinese garden-style befitting Peking University's campus. It has been a retreat for scholars of archaeology and museology, since its official opening in 1993. It hopes to attract more ordinary visitors with dynamic exhibitions.

If you go
 

9 am-4:30 pm, through Sept 27. Arthur M. Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology, near the west gate of Peking University, Haidian district, Beijing. 010-6275-9784.