The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art (NMAA) has announced Ching-Ling Wang, currently curator at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, as its inaugural Nancy Chang Lee Curator of Chinese Art. Wang will assume the post in November.

Wang studied East Asian art history at National Taiwan University in Taipei before completing a doctorate in the field at Freie Universität Berlin in 2013. His research and publications have addressed Chinese literati painting, Ming and Qing court art, Buddhist iconography, and historical cultural exchanges between Asia and Europe. From 2015 to 2016, he served as curator of pre-modern Chinese art at Berlin’s Asian Art Museum and managed the Chinese collection at the Ethnological Museum of Berlin. He joined the Rijksmuseum in 2016, where he has served as curator of East Asian Art. Wang has worked on shows in Taiwan, China, Germany, and the Netherlands, including the exhibitions “Asian Bronze: 4000 Years of Beauty” (2024) at the Rijksmuseum and “Goddess of Infinite Faces: Special Exhibition on Taiwan’s Mazu Faith Culture” (2026) at the National Taiwan History Museum.

In a press release, Wang stated that he hopes to expand access to the full range of the NMAA’s Chinese art holdings, which comprises some 13,000 objects. Through “collaborative pathways across disciplines, institutions and countries,” he aims to deepen contemporary audiences’  understanding and appreciation of the collection.

Nancy Chang Lee, an NMAA patron since 2017, welcomed Wang’s appointment, citing his “commitment to advance the presentation and appreciation of [the museum’s] Chinese art collection beyond walls and borders.”

Harison Butler is an editorial intern at ArtAsiaPacific.