On Thursday, February 16th, The Wall Street Journal featured a lengthy and positive review of the BMA's current exhibition, Dragons and Lotus Blossoms: Vietnamese Ceramics from the Birmingham Museum of Art. Citing the collection among the top in the country, alongside the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the article details the collection's fascinating acquistion process, which began with the formation of the BMA's oldest support group, the Asian Art Society.

The Wall Street Journal
02.16.2012
by Lee Adair Lawrence

"Chinese ceramics are good for the eye; Vietnamese ceramics are good for the heart." This sentiment from an unnamed Vietnamese scholar quoted in the catalog of "Dragons & Lotus Blossoms" should be emblazoned at the show's entrance. There could be no better invitation to this display of Vietnamese stoneware at the Birmingham Museum of Art, one of the top such collections in the U.S. along with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Curator Donald Wood's installation is straightforward: With few exceptions, he groups all 220-plus of the collection's vessels and ritual ware in table-high display cases that fill nine partitioned spaces. As with all displays of ceramics, there is an inherent frustration:

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