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William Sturgis Bigelow (April 4, 1850 in Boston, Massachusetts –1926) was a prominent American collector of Japanese art. The art collection trips he funded in the 1880s helped to form the standards by which Japanese art and culture were appreciated in the West.
1850 - 1926. The son of surgeon Henry Jacob Bigelow, William Sturgis Bigelow earned his AB degree from Harvard in 1871 and his MD in 1874. He continued his medical training in Vienna, Strasbourg, and Paris, the last under Louis Pasteur. He brought back knowledge of bacteriology and established one of the U.S.'s first bacteriological laboratories.
One told of Babe Ruth's still unexcelled feat of hitting three home runs in a World Series game, but the larger headline reported the death of William Sturgis Bigelow. His funeral, at Trinity Church, was conducted by his classmate William Lawrence, the former Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts. His ashes were divided.
Dr. William Sturgis Bigelow lived between two worlds, and according to a biographical sketch of his life by Dr. Curtis Prout, when Bigelow died in 1926, half of his ashes were interred at Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and half were buried in Japan, near a Buddhist temple and overlooking a favorite lake.
William Sturgis Bigelow was a graduate of Harvard Medical School but only practiced medicine for a few years, a Buddhist, and a life-long lover of Japan and it's art. He is best known though for the enormous collection of Japanese art that he collected during his seven year stay in Japan which began in the fall of 1882.
- April 4, 1850
- October 6, 1926
Bigelow, William Sturgis, 1850-1926. William Sturgis Bigelow was an Asian art collector and instructor of surgery at Harvard University. Bigelow’s collection included Japanese prints, drawings, paintings, Buddhist sculpture, Noh robes and sword fittings. He was a trustee of the Museum of Fine arts, Boston, where his Japanese paintings were ...
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Provenance By 1911, purchased by William Sturgis Bigelow (b. 1850 - d. 1926), Boston [see note 1]; 1911, gift of Bigelow to the MFA. (Accession Date: August 3, 1911) NOTES: [1] Much of Bigelow's collection of Asian art was formed during his residence in Japan between 1882 and 1889, although he also made acquisitions in Europe and the United States.
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