The Japan Art Association is pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. h. c. Klaus-Dieter Lehmann, President of the Goethe-Institut, will take on the role of International Advisor of Praemium Imperiale from October 2010. Mr. Lehmann will succeed the late Dr. Otto Graf Lambsdorff, former German Economic Minister, in this role and will preside over a German nomination committee, recommending candidates for the Praemium Imperiale Awards from 2011 onwards.

Born in 1940, Mr. Lehmann became President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in 1998 and played a major part in restoring and completing the Museum Island Berlin. In 2008 he became President of the Goethe-Institut, whose work he had accompanied as Vice-President since 2002. The Goethe-Institutut is the Federal Republic of Germany’s cultural institution with about 150 institutes in 85 countries.

Six International Advisors
In addition to Mr. Lehmann, there are five other International Advisors: Mr. Lamberto Dini (former Italian Prime Minister); Mr. William Luers (former President of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), Mr. François Pinault (President of Pinault Foundation of Contemporary Art), Lord Christopher Patten (Chancellor of the University Oxford / former Governor of Hong Kong) and Mr. Yasuhiro Nakasone (former Japanese Prime Minister).