Photograph of "Skimming paper"
Medium:Printed on Velox paper
Geography: Japan
Date: about 1927
Object number: 2012X49.65.42
DescriptionStamp on back "Property of Dorothy Blair".
Object History: Dorothy Lilian Blair was born on September 19, 1890, in Webster Groves, Missouri and grew up in Alton, Illinois, later attending Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts. After graduation in 1914, she became an Assistant in the Art and Archaeology Department at the College until 1916; was Secretary to the Director of The Cleveland Museum of Art from 1917 to 1921; an Assistant Curator in the Department of Oriental Art at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1921 to 1922, and Assistant Director and Curator of European Art and Prints at the John Herron Art Institute from 1922 to 1926. In 1927, Blair traveled to Japan as a special student in the Department of Archaeology, College of Literature, Kyoto Imperial University, which led to an interest in Japanese art. Returning to the States in 1928, Blair served as Assistant Curator of Oriental Art at The Toledo Museum of Art. From 1937 to 1941, she enrolled in a two-year graduate program at the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of Michigan, and she made research trips to Japan at this time. Unable to complete her studies due to the war, Blair continued to work at The Toledo Museum of Art until retirement in 1952. From 1952, Blair became an Assistant Director at the University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies in Okayama, Japan. In 1954, Blair began an independent study of glass in East Asia, and in 1956, she returned to the University of Michigan to resume her part-time postgraduate study in Japanese. In 1958 due to Blair's interest in Japanese glass Corning Museum of Glass appointed her a Research Fellow. She traveled to Japan and Korea to study the development of Japanese glass, returning to Corning in 1961. Her book, A History of Glass in Japan, was published in 1973. She remained as a consultant at Corning until her death on March 16, 1989, in Corning, New York at age ninety-eight.
Blair donated a number of archaeological objects to the ROM in 1952, presumably due to downsizing after ostensibly retiring in 1952, her address on record being at Toledo. This photograph is one of a series, mostly postcards, that bear her stamp and were presumably also donated to the ROM in 1952. These may have been acquired in Japan in 1927, or between 1937 and 1941. Judging by the documents she donated to Mount Holyoke College, the earlier date is most likely for the photographs and postcards.
