WASHINGTON, DC.- The Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery have announced that James Cahill,former curator of Chinese art at the Freer and eminent scholar in many topics of Chinese and Japanese art history, will be awarded the Charles Lang Freer Medal in recognition of a lifetime of seminal contributions to his field. Over the years, Cahill’s scholarly writings and collaborative projects with other prominent Chinese art specialists have played an important role in the development of Chinese art history studies internationally. A specialist in Chinese painting, he has worked on major artists and their masterworks, as well as lesser known painters, thereby broadly expanding subjects of study. Cahill will receive the medal Thursday, Nov. 18, at 11 a.m, in a public ceremony in the Freer’s Meyer Auditorium. Born in 1926 at Fort Bragg, Calif. Cahill received his bachelor’s degree in Oriental Languages fro