A distinguished artist, photographer, academic, writer, and curator, Joan Lebold Cohen spent over 25 years teaching at the Museum of Fine Arts School in Boston. She has written extensively for Art News and the Asian Wall Street Journal, specializing in contemporary Chinese art, Japanese and Chinese film, and Asian art history. As a pioneering curator, she has played a significant role in documenting and promoting Chinese contemporary art, making her one of the most important Western scholars in the field.

Her monumental photographic work includes a collection of over 75,000 slides documenting art and culture throughout Asia. A portion of this collection, 16,000 slides, has already been digitized thanks to the efforts of Jane Debevoise and the Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong. The remaining 60,000 slides—accompanied by Joan’s detailed notes and categorization—await digitization, ensuring future generations of scholars and researchers have access to this invaluable archive.