Jane Portal
Curator
China and Korea
Department: Asia
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7323 8539
Email: jportal @ thebritishmuseum.ac.uk
Jane Portal heads the Chinese section in the
Department of Asia and co-ordinates the Museum’s China Strategy.
This programme involves exhibitions and exchanges between museums
in China and the British Museum. She is also curator of the Korean
collection and the Korea Foundation Gallery.
Jane studied Chinese at Cambridge University
and Chinese Archaeology at Beijing University. She then studied
Korean at SOAS in London and Yonsei University in Seoul.
Current British Museum projects
Curator: The First Emperor: China’s
Terracotta Army, a loan exhibition from Xi’an, China
Previous British Museum projects
Curator of Gods, Guardians and Immortals, a
Chinese paintings exhibition at the Museum in 2007
Curator: Mountains and Water, a Chinese landscape
paintings exhibition in 2005
Collecting contemporary material from North Korea, which
she visited in 2001 and 2002
Curator of the Korea Foundation Gallery which opened at the
Museum in 2000
External fellowships/ honorary positions/ membership of professional bodies
Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries
Council Member, British Association for Korean
Studies
Member Association of Korean Studies in
Europe
Member, Oriental Ceramic Society
Publications
J. Portal, Korea: Art and Archaeology (London: British
Museum Press, 2000)
J. Portal, Chinese Love Poetry
(London: British Museum Press, 2004)
J. Portal, B. McKillop (eds.) North Korean
Culture and Society (British Museum Research Publication 151
(London: The British Museum, 2004)
J. Portal, Art Under Control in North Korea (London:
Reaktion Books in association with British Museum Press,
2005); American edition (University of Chicago Press, 2005);
Korean edition (Keelsan Books, Seoul, 2005)