The online exhibition was designed by Lourdes Santamaría-Wheeler and curators were Jason Steuber, Allysa Browne Peyton and Lourdes Santamaría-Wheeler. Online content allows access to the collections of the libraries and the museum to an international audience, as well as to the local community and scholars.
All items featured in the online exhibition are also freely available as zoomable images in the University of Florida Digital Collections (http://ufdc.ufl.edu) uniting the art objects with related texts in order to create a more complete research portal.
The exhibition highlights the Korean donations of General James A. Van Fleet (U.S. Army officer during WWI, WWII and the Korean War and UF football coach 1923-1924), including rare blue-and-white porcelains and hanging scroll masterpieces by Kim Hongdo (1745 - c.1806), Jang Seung-eop (1843-1897), and Kim Eunho (1892-1979), each noteworthy for their quality and rarity in Western collections.
Multimedia content is featured from an exceptionally rare 17th-century Korean gilt wood bodhisattva from the Joseon Dynasty which has been extensively researched through medical imaging at both North Florida Regional Medical Center and Shands at UF, high resolution digitization in the round at the UF Digital Library Center, and both art and paper conservation.
The UF Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere Library Enhancement Grant partially funded the online exhibition.
The Washington Post published an article Friday, March 23 (‘Buddha’ goes to the hospital: A convergence of science, history and art – http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-innovations/buddha-goes-to-the-hospital-medical-scans-reveal-rare-documents-inside-17th-century-sculpture/2012/03/22/gIQADq96TS_story.html) featuring images of the Buddha from the University of Florida Digital Collections.
For more information contact: Lourdes Santamaría-Wheeler, (352) 273-2564, l.s.wheeler@ufl.edu
