Helen C. Gunsaulus

Helen C. Gunsaulus specialized in Japanese prints, decorative arts, and ethnology during a career in Chicago museums. After working as assistant curator of Japanese ethnology at the Field Museum, she joined the Art Institute of Chicago during 1926, eventually becoming curator of the Clarence Buckingham Print Collection. Japanese Collections is associated with her museum work documenting Japanese art and material culture at the Field Museum. Her publications also included Japanese Sword-mounts in the Collections of Field Museum, studies of Japanese costume and temples, and catalogues of illustrated books and prints. Gunsaulus assembled her own significant group of surimono and helped develop Chicago museum collections through research, exhibitions, lectures, and gifts. She remained at the Art Institute until retiring in 1943. Japanese Collections reflects a career built around close study of objects, historical cataloguing, and public interpretation, connecting her scholarship at two major Chicago institutions with the growth of American interest in Japanese art.