(Re)Collecting: Southeast Asia at the Johnson Museum

Alexander Brown Griswold (1907-1991) donated 71 objects from Asia to the Johnson Museum beginning in 1975. These objects were previously part of his own collection that he kept at his estate, known as Breezewood, in Monkton, Maryland. Alexander Griswold was born in 1907 in Maryland, attended private schools in Baltimore, and graduated from Princeton University in 1928. The outbreak of World War II forever altered the course of his life by bringing him to Thailand; Griswold served in the army and was assigned to the Office of Strategic Services in Bangkok. He became captivated by Thai art and history, and started collecting works of Thai art, especially Buddhist sculpture, in 1945. The author of numerous scholarly and popular works, Griswold has made wide-ranging contributions to the fields of Thai art history and Southeast Asian art history more broadly, and was a generous collaborator and devoted friend.