Jane Portal


Jane Virginia Portal BA, MA, FSA is a specialist in Chinese and Korean art history, and is Keeper of the Department of Asia at the British Museum.

About

Portal was born in Mtarfa, Malta, where her father served in the British Navy. After attending Maidstone Girls' Grammar School, where she was Head Girl, she studied Chinese at Girton College, Cambridge, and Korean at the School of Oriental and African Studies. She studied Chinese archaeology at Peking University, 1979-80, and a year studying Korean at Yonsei University, Seoul, 1994–95.

Career

Portal worked as Curator of Chinese and Korean Collections at the British Museum, 1987–2008, creating the Korea Foundation Gallery in 2000. In 2001 and 2002, she made two visits to North Korea, following the establishment of diplomatic relations, and started collecting contemporary works from the DPRK for the British Museum. In 2007, she curated the exhibition "The First Emperor: China's Terracotta Army", which attracted a record-breaking 850,000 visitors and won the Art Fund's exhibition of the year award.
From 2008 to 2014 Portal was the Matsutaro Shoriki Chair of Asia, Oceania and Africa at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, where she oversaw new galleries for South Asia, Oceania and Benin, as well as many Asian exhibitions. In December 2014, she returned to the British Museum, where she led the renovation and redisplay of the Sir Joseph Hotung Gallery of China and South Asia, opened by Queen Elizabeth II in November 2017, and oversaw the redisplay of the Mitsubishi Corporation Japanese Galleries, which re-opened in 2018.

Selected publications

  • Precious beyond Measure. A History of Korean Ceramics ISBN 9781789148671
  • Arts of Korea: MFA Highlights
  • The Terracotta Warriors
  • The First Emperor: China’s Terracotta Army, ; ;
  • Chinese Art in Detail ;
  • Art Under Control in North Korea ; ; Korean edition
  • Chinese Calligraphy. Standard Script for Beginners
  • Chinese Love Poetry
  • North Korean Culture and Society. British Museum Research Publication 151
  • Korea: Art and Archaeology
  • 'Korean Celadons of the Koryo Dynasty’ pp 98–103 in I. Freestone and D. Gaimster Pottery in the Making: Ceramic Traditions
  • ‘Decorative Arts for Display’ and ‘Luxuries for Trade’ in Jessica Rawson The British Museum Book of Chinese Art.