Upper Category Member Events

Upper Category Member Events

Each year, the Upper Category Member Events Committee brings together a roster of special events for SAA members in the Contributor, Donor and Sponsor levels.

In 2024, we organized a variety of special events, including a Sponsor and Donor member event on Japanese inro with collector Steve Koppich; a Society Conversation with Akiko Walley, the Maude I. Kerns Associate Professor of Japanese Art at the University of Oregon, on the legendary Katsura Villa in Kyoto; a Society Conversation with Sarah Wenner, a Curatorial Fellow in Ancient Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Art at the Cincinnati Museum of Art, on Petra and other Nabataean sites; a Society Conversation with Suzanne Lecht, the founder and owner of Art Vietnam Gallery in Hanoi, on favorite works and upcoming exhibitions; and a Sponsor member event with Forrest McGill, former Asian Art Museum Wattis Curator of South and Southeast Asian Art on a Thai ceramic object in the museum's collection, Invisible Trade: What One Subject Suggest about the Flow of Ideas.



For 2025, the Upper Category Member Events Committee is hard at work on another stellar schedule of programs.

If you are not yet an Upper Category member, we invite your participation. Please contact the SAA Office Manager to upgrade your membership, or join as an Upper Category member.

Upcoming Upper Category Member Events

Check back soon for other upcoming Upper Category member events that are being planned. Thank you.

Annual Sponsor-Donor Upper Category Event
Featuring a Presentation on Japanese Fukusa by Peter Sinton

Sunday, January 12, 2025
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM
Private Residence in the East Bay

Fee: $20 per person Society Sponsor and Donor members only.
Please register online by January 5, 2025. (An email invitation was sent to Sponsor and Donor members on Dec. 12.)

This program will feature Peter Sinton, a former journalist and Asian Art Museum docent who is fondly remembered by SAA members for his witty speaker introductions when he co-chaired the Arts of Asia Committee. Peter and his wife Beverly have recently donated portions of their Japanese fukusa collection to the Asian Art Museum, and Peter will provide background information about fukusa and discuss his experiences as a collector.

Please note:

• Refreshments will be served.
• An exact address will be provided to registered attendees before the event.
• Participation is limited to 20 Sponsor and Donor Level Upper Category members.

Photo caption: Gift cover (fukusa) with rooster, hen, and rice bales, 1900–1926. Japan. Silk cut velvet hand-painted with colored dyes.Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, Gift of Peter and Beverly Sinton, F2022.25.9. Photograph © Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.