Surprises in the South: Japanese Art in Alabama (Dr. Katherine Anne Paul)
Did you know there is another JASA? The Japan-American Society of Alabama! This is only one aspect of under-known connections between Japan and the state of Alabama. In this February 7, 2024, webinar Dr. Katherine Anne Paul, Virginia and William Spencer III Curator of Asian Art at the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama, discusses the many surprises and connections with Japanese Art in Alabama, including:
- Mobile, Alabama, native, Mary McNeil Fenollosa—co-author of Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art: An Outline History of East Asiatic Design, with her husband, Ernest Fenollosa—left her collection to the Mobile History Museum.
- In 1915, the town of Satsuma, Alabama, was named after the Japanese satsuma orange, which was successfully cultivated and grown there starting in 1878, a gift from Emperor Meiji.
- Part of the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, a Japanesque garden designed by Japanese-American architect Masaji “Buffy” Murai showcases a Japanese tea house called Toshinan, designed and installed by Kazunori Tago (eighth generation Miyadaiku from Maebashi, Japan).
- Of course, there is also the great work of Dr. Donald A. Wood at the Birmingham Museum of Art (Awardee of the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Rays) renowned for his Kamisaka Sekka: Rimpa Master—Pioneer of Modern Design exhibition and publication as well as his work with Echizen ceramics. Throughout his 30 year career Don Wood keenly acquired Japanese works for Birmingham’s collections. Many of these works, like Kasuga Shika Mandala by Rokkaku Jakusai, have fascinating Alabama histories.