DORIS DUKE
THE SOUTHEAST ASIAN ART COLLECTION
BY NANCY TINGLEY

$25.00

In 1925, twelve-year-old Doris Duke inherited a substantial fortune from her father, James B. Duke, a successful industrialist whose family founded the Duke Power Company and the American Tobacco Company. Doris Duke was an intensely private woman who disdained the celebrity that she inherited along with her wealth. In 1935 at age 22, she embarked on a honeymoon journey around the world, visiting Egypt, the near East, India, Singapore, Bangkok, Indonesia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Japan, as well as sites in Europe. The cultures of Asia sparked Doris Duke’s passion for Islamic and Southeast Asian art and culture, which in turn shaped the course of her life’s work, and cultural endeavors.

Inspired by her honeymoon travels, Doris Duke built a winter home in Honolulu in the late 1930s called Shangri La, which houses the vast and unique collection of Islamic art that she assembled over more than 60 years. In 1957, Doris Duke returned to Thailand for the first time since her honeymoon, and its art and culture subsequently became a major focus of her collecting. Over the next few years, she would embark on a new project: to recreate and furnish a Thai village – complete with a replica of a pavilion from the temple compound of the Royal Palace in Bangkok – to educate the American public about Southeast Asian art, and culture. She envisioned the village as a gift for the people of Hawai´i.

Doris Duke: The Southeast Asian Art Collection features some of the objects she collected for the Thai Village Project, and reveals the passion, and talent of Doris Duke as a collector. It informs readers about the historical significance of the art, and offers substantial visual rewards.