More than 4,000 works of Asian art are set to join the Crow Museum of Asian Art, located at The University of Texas at Dallas, including pottery, bronzes and sculptures.
Collector Barry L. MacLean donated a collection spanning 5,000 years of history to the museum, along with $10 million to fund the preservation, maintenance and care of the artifacts, according to a news release from the university.
The overview
The MacLean Collection is “one of the great Asian art collections put together in the United States,” said Richard Pegg, director and curator of Asian art for the collection.
Several pieces from the collection have already found a home in the museum, including several outdoor sculptures. The museum also opened the exhibit “Fire and Earth: Early Chinese Pottery from the MacLean Collection” in 2025 at its downtown Dallas location with 45 ceramic vessels.
New pieces from the collection are set to be added to the museum at UT Dallas in 2027.
“We have been very intentional about building a museum that reflects the depth and diversity of Asian art and its importance in our world,” Amy Hofland, senior director of the Crow Museum, said in the release. “This extraordinary gift brings us closer to that vision and gives us the opportunity to create something truly significant for generations to come.”
A closer look
According to the release, MacLean began collecting ancient pottery in the early 1970s. About half of the artifacts in the gift to the Crow come from China, per the release, while others hail from Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and Indonesia. They represent thousands of years of history from the Neolithic period to the present.
“Barry MacLean has spent a lifetime learning from these remarkable works of art, and I am deeply grateful that he has entrusted their future to us,” Hofland said.
Per the release, the MacLean collection will serve as a resource for studying art, history and culture at UT Dallas, which Pegg said was one of the reasons that the family chose the Crow as the collection’s permanent home.
“[MacLean] knows these objects have stories to tell, and he wants them told,” Pegg said.
The donation also supports the university’s vision for the Edith and Peter O’Donnell Jr. Athenaeum, the arts and culture district on campus that houses the Crow Museum.
“At the heart of our museum is the belief that the arts help us better understand one another,” Hofland said. “Each work carries a history, a human story and an opportunity to learn something about a culture or time different from our own. With this collection at UT Dallas, we can bring those stories into university and K-12 classrooms and into galleries and conversations throughout our community.”
