Brooks gets first pick of Belz family Chinese art collection
Jack Belz, whose real estate company was instrumental in the revitalization of Downtown, most notably the restoration and reopening of the Peabody Hotel in 1981, has long been a passionate art collector. (Benjamin Naylor/The Daily Memphian)
The Memphis Brooks Museum of Art historically has had little Chinese art, but now, it has 95 pieces thanks to a gift from the Belz family.
The Belz collection includes large textiles, paintings, embroidered panels, jade and porcelain pieces, much of it dating to the 17th and 18th centuries.
“We gave them the authority to go into our museum and select the pieces they would like to want to have incorporated with their Downtown museum,” said Jack Belz, the 96-year-old chairman of generations-old Memphis real estate company Belz Enterprises.
“They had certain porcelains and things like that,” Belz said in an interview in the solarium of his East Memphis home last week. “Of course, they had no jade, and they didn’t have near the paintings that we have.”
The Memphis Art Museum — the new moniker for the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, which is relocating from Overton Park to Downtown Memphis — is under construction and scheduled for a 2026 opening. (Credit Memphis Brooks Museum of Art)
The Brooks expects to acquire about 100 pieces, most of which will not be on display until the museum moves into its new Downtown location in 2026.
The Belz family, well known for its philanthropy, donated $10 million to the construction of the new museum, and a wing will be named in its honor.
But seven pieces are already on display in an exhibit called “China Blues: The World in Blue and White.”
It includes two paintings: ink and watercolor on paper and a blue and white vase. At more than 4 feet tall, they are easily a focal point of the show, which is scheduled through September.
The museum, which has contracted with an expert in Chinese art to choose and later curate exhibits featuring the pieces, has spent weeks studying the collection at the Belz Museum of Asian and Judaic Art, 119 S. Main St., selecting pieces that will help tell a larger story.
“We have been floored by how generous they have been with the museum staff — with their time and their access — allowing us to spend a lot of time in their storage areas as well as in their galleries,” said Jennifer Draffen, director of the Brooks’ collections, exhibitions and publications.
“We’ll need to have the curators come through and do another couple of rounds,” Draffen said. “With a collection this large and significant, it is going to take a while.”
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Jack Belz Memphis Brooks Museum of Art Belz Museum of Asian and Judaic Art Jennifer Draffen Subscriber OnlyThank you for supporting local journalism.
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Jane Roberts
Longtime journalist Jane Roberts is a Minnesotan by birth and a Memphian by choice. She's lived and reported in the city more than two decades. She covers business news and features for The Daily Memphian.
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