Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
In this talk, curator Sol Jung explores the past and present of Japanese tea practice with a behind-the-scenes look at the Kinsey Chanoyu Collection and its impact on the Freer Study Collection.
Sol Jung is the Shirley Z. Johnson Assistant Curator of Japanese Art at the National Museum of Asian Art. She specializes in Japanese art history with a focus on how transnational maritime trade impacted Japan’s visual culture during the premodern period. Jung received her BA with distinction in history of art at the University of Pennsylvania and her MA in art and archaeology from Princeton University. She curated Princeton University Art Museum’s first thematic exhibition of Korean ceramics entitled Korean Ceramics: From Archaeology to Art History. Jung has examined the reception of Korean tea bowls, called kōrai jawan in Japan, during the sixteenth century. Fieldwork at several maritime settlement sites in Japan and analysis of period tea documents, literary texts, and archaeological remains have informed her research, which has been supported by the Metropolitan Center for Far Eastern Art Studies and the Kyujanggak International Center for Korean Studies.
This program is part of the online series Perspectives on Japanese Tea Practice (https://asia.si.edu/whats-on/events/event-series/perspectives-on-japanese-tea-practice/), which brings together various experts on Japanese tea practice, called chanoyu, to explore its evolution from the past into the present. Roundtable discussions and lectures with tea practitioners, collectors, curators, university professors, architects, and artists reveal how cross-cultural connections have been crucial to historic and contemporary Japanese tea practice.
We created this series to complement the exhibition Reasons to Gather: Japanese Tea Practice Unwrapped (https://asia.si.edu/whats-on/events/event-series/perspectives-on-japanese-tea-practice/).
This event was recorded on January 13, 2026.
In this talk, curator Sol Jung explores the past and present of Japanese tea practice with a behind-the-scenes look at the Kinsey Chanoyu Collection and its impact on the Freer Study Collection.
Sol Jung is the Shirley Z. Johnson Assistant Curator of Japanese Art at the National Museum of Asian Art. She specializes in Japanese art history with a focus on how transnational maritime trade impacted Japan’s visual culture during the premodern period. Jung received her BA with distinction in history of art at the University of Pennsylvania and her MA in art and archaeology from Princeton University. She curated Princeton University Art Museum’s first thematic exhibition of Korean ceramics entitled Korean Ceramics: From Archaeology to Art History. Jung has examined the reception of Korean tea bowls, called kōrai jawan in Japan, during the sixteenth century. Fieldwork at several maritime settlement sites in Japan and analysis of period tea documents, literary texts, and archaeological remains have informed her research, which has been supported by the Metropolitan Center for Far Eastern Art Studies and the Kyujanggak International Center for Korean Studies.
This program is part of the online series Perspectives on Japanese Tea Practice (https://asia.si.edu/whats-on/events/event-series/perspectives-on-japanese-tea-practice/), which brings together various experts on Japanese tea practice, called chanoyu, to explore its evolution from the past into the present. Roundtable discussions and lectures with tea practitioners, collectors, curators, university professors, architects, and artists reveal how cross-cultural connections have been crucial to historic and contemporary Japanese tea practice.
We created this series to complement the exhibition Reasons to Gather: Japanese Tea Practice Unwrapped (https://asia.si.edu/whats-on/events/event-series/perspectives-on-japanese-tea-practice/).
This event was recorded on January 13, 2026.
