Passion for Form. Selections of Southeast Asian art from the MacLean Collection

by Richard A. Pegg

Passion for Form is the first public exhibition of the Southeast Asian treasures found in the MacLean Collection. Never before exhibited outside the Chicago area, the collection encompasses the present geopolitical areas of Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia. The objects represent a variety of cultures, such as Ban Chiang, Dong son, Dvaravati, Cham, Khmer and others. The exhibition takes its title from the collector's own passion for these exquisite objects. Even after forty years, the memory of his first acquisition sets Barry MacLean's hands up in the air, enthusiastically outlining the vessel's shapes. In recent years, the MacLean Collection has been a catalyst for intense study of the early cultures of Southeast Asia.