Japanese Art Events and Exhibition Openings – Japanese Art Society of America

JASA is pleased to provide this monthly list of selected Japanese art–related events, activities and exhibition openings from our Impressions advertisers and from museums and galleries across the country. If you wish to add an item for a future Calendar, please contact our If you wish to add an item for a future Calendar, please contact JASA Japanese Art Calendar. Important notice: By clicking on the links below, you are leaving the JASA website. JASA is not responsible for, nor do we endorse, the content on any linked external sites.

December

Lectures and Events

December 15, 2–2:30 p.m. EST

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is presenting “Calligraphy Across the Collection” as part of its “Sunday at The Met” series. JASA member John Carpenter, Mary Griggs Burke Curator of Japanese Art, and three other Met curators of Asian art will discuss works of art that feature calligraphy throughout The Met collection, including Chinese, Islamic, Japanese, and modern and contemporary art. Learn how artists across different times and cultures have explored calligraphy’s capacity for visual, emotional and social impact beyond linguistic barriers. The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium. Free of charge but advance registration is required here.

December 17, 5 p.m. EST

JASA is hosting a live Zoom webinar on “New Horizons for Japanese Art at the Princeton University Art Museum” presented by Curator of Asian Art Kit Brooks. Reopening in Fall 2025 after a multi-year closure, the new Princeton University Art Museum will feature a suite of galleries devoted to the display of Asian Art. More information and sign up here.

Museum and Gallery Exhibitions

Through December 20

Joan B Mirviss LTD, New York, is presenting Swirling Vortex: Sand and Waves Sakiyama Takayuki. The artist’s sixth solo exhibition with Joan B Mirviss LTD, Sakiyama Takayuki (b. 1958) continues to explore the meeting of waves and shoreline, drawing inspiration from the rugged coastal landscape near his studio on the Izu peninsula. More information here.

Through December 20

Onishi Gallery, New York, specializing in Kogei (contemporary craft art from Japan), is presenting an exhibition at its new Upper East Side gallery (16 E. 79 St., ground floor) featuring work by leading contemporary artists working in a range of traditional media. More information here.

Through December 20

Thomsen Gallery, New York, is showing Golden Treasures: Japanese Gold Lacquer Boxes. More information here.

Through January 31, 2025

The Hornblake Library North at the University of Maryland, College Park, is presenting an exhibition, Onchi Kōshirō Graphic Artist: Picturing Postwar Japan. The works on display are drawn from The Gordon W. Prange Collection, the unique archive of the Allied Occupation’s print publication censorship operation from 1945 to 1949, which forms part of the Special Collections and University Archives at the University of Maryland Libraries. A strikingly diverse array of book designs and illustrations, some of which have never before been exhibited or studied, offers a vivid glimpse into Onchi’s exploratory artistic practice and early postwar Japan.

Through January 31, 2025

Scholten Japanese Art, New York, is showing Creative Connections: Sosaku Hanga Artists and New York, featuring a selection of works by a group of preeminent Japanese sosaku-hanga print artists, all of whom had connections with New York and with each other. More information here.

Through March 23, 2025

The Chester Beatty Museum, Dublin, Ireland, is presenting Zodiac Netsuke: Animals of the Japanese Zodiac in Miniature, featuring the stories of the Japanese twelve zodiac animals along with fun facts about these animals in Irish folklore and in the world of zoology. More information here.

Through March 2025

Philadelphia Museum of Art is presenting an exhibition on Collecting Japanese Art in Philadelphia. The 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia was the first world’s fair held in the United States and also the beginning of Japanese art collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Over nearly 150 years that followed, the museum’s Japanese art collection expanded and diversified. Drawn from the works highlighted in the new publication Art of Japan: Highlights from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the selections in this installation—ranging from ceramics, metalwork, painting and lacquerware to contemporary bamboo art—showcase the breadth of Japanese art, and also spotlight the people—collectors, donors, curators—who were instrumental in shaping the collection. This third and final iteration features a set of four landscape paintings attributed to Sesshū Tōyō, purchased from the Simkhovitch collection in 1929. More information here.

Through May 25, 2025

Minneapolis Institute of Art is presenting two exhibitions: Catch of the Day: Humans and Marine Animals in Japan explores the sea creatures that permeate Japanese art and culture, and dives into their deeper meaning. More information here.

Through July 20, 2025

Also showing is And more by more they dream their sleep: Mezzotints by Yōzō Hamaguchi. More information here.

November

Lectures and Events

November 14, 10:30 a.m. PST

Society for Asian Art, affiliated with the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, is presenting a lecture by Japanese Art Curator Janice Katz on Radical Clay, the recent exhibition she curated at the Art Institute of Chicago. The exhibition celebrated 36 Japanese female artists through 40 stunning virtuosic ceramic pieces, many of which Katz will present and talk about in her lecture. Fee. More information and sign up here.

November 14, 5 p.m. EST

Joan B Mirviss LTD and Asia Week New York are presenting a live Zoom webinar on “Material Transformation: Textile Art in Japan, ” examining the history of Japanese textile art, the evolution of the kimono, the continued use of recycled materials in textile creation, and the ways contemporary makers use traditional aesthetics and techniques innovatively to expand the field of Japanese textile art, bringing it to an international audience. Panelists include Steve Beimel of Japan Craft 21; Monika Bincsik, Diane and Arthur Abbey Curator for Japanese Decorative Arts, Metropolitan Museum of Art; Anna Jackson, Keeper, Asian Department, Victoria and Albert Museum; and Reiko Sudō, artist and design director of Nuno. More information and sign up here.

November 17, 5:30 p.m. PST

Los Angeles County Museum of Art is hosting the 37th Annual Michele and Peter Berton Memorial Lecture on Japanese Art on “The Aesthetics of Textile Mountings for Japanese Painting” by Andrew Hare, retired Supervisory Conservator of East Asian Painting, National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution. Textile mountings for scroll paintings are both a decorative framework and structural support that is essential for the appreciation, display, and preservation of East Asian paintings. Hare will discuss the evolution of diverse mounting styles focusing on Japanese examples from the past 1,000 years. More information and sign up here.

November 21, 6 p.m. EST

Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia University, New York, is hosting a lecture on “Meanings of Antiquity: Myth Interpretation in Premodern Japan” by Matthieu Felt, Assistant Professor of Japanese at the University of Florida. In this this talk, Professor Felt discusses his 2023 book Meanings of Antiquity, the first dedicated study of how the oldest Japanese myths, recorded in the eighth-century texts Kojiki and Nihon shoki, changed in meaning and significance between 800 and 1800 CE. Kent Hall, Room 403, Columbia University. Preregistration is required. Click here. A one-time QR code for entry to campus will be distributed the day before the event date. Have a government-issued ID matching the name on the preregistration.

Museum and Gallery Exhibitions

Opens November 7

November 7–11

Ippodo Gallery and Onishi Gallery are exhibiting at Salon Art + Design, New York. More information about the show here. Onishi Gallery is also presenting work by six leading artists working in a range of traditional media, Kogei and Art, at its new gallery at 16 E. 79th Street, Ground Floor, New York City. More information here.

November 11—December 13

Dai Ichi Arts, Ltd, New York, is presenting Treasures in Miniature: Modern and Contemporary Ceramics from Japan and Korea, featuring a curated collection of small works by modern and contemporary master ceramicists working in water droppers, incense implements, and tea and sake drink ware. More information here.

Through December 7

Ronin Gallery, New York, is presenting Selected Tales from Yoshitoshi’s New Forms of Thirty-Six Ghosts (1889-1892). From lonely ghosts and otherworldly animals, to monsters, demons and the mortals left terrified in their wake, Yoshitoshi captures each tale with an elegance of design, a mastery of atmosphere and sensitivity to the chilling story at hand. More information here.

Through December 8

These are the final weeks to see the Brooklyn Museum’s exhibition of Porcelains in the Mist: The Kondo Family of Ceramicists in the Museum’s Arts of Japan gallery, showcasing 61 works by four members of the Kondo family, with special emphasis on the work of living artist Kondo Takahiro. Ranging from pure white porcelain to ash-glazed stoneware to Takahiro’s signature monoliths covered in “silver mist” glaze, the exhibition celebrates a lineage that emphasized originality and self expression. More information here.

Through December 21

Seizan Gallery, New York, is presenting With Fallen Leaves, featuring 17 new oil paintings by Yasushi Ikejiri. These works deepen the artist’s exploration of the Candy Wrapper series, where mundane encounters become sites of unexpected intensity. More information here.

October

Lectures and Events

October 3, 5:30 p.m., 807 Schermerhorn Hall, Columbia University

The Burke Center at Columbia University, New York, is hosting Ignacio Adriasola of the University of British Columbia speaking on “About Walls: Limit, Space, and Landscape in Enokura Koji’s Work.” The lecture considers works involving walls, created since the 1970s by Enokura Kōji (榎倉康二 ; Tokyo, 1942-1995). Walls define the contours of space and establish a limit, creating a firm separation between inside and outside. Relying on pre-existing walls, which he stained, or building new ones in unexpected sites, Enokura effected a cut in landscape, forcing the viewer to consider both the problematic existence of that obstacle before them and what lay beyond. Through his ambivalent use of space as a medium of 807 Schermerhorn Hall at Columbia University. In-person only. RSVP: mo2486@columbia.edu.

October 5, 2 p.m.

Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, is presenting a lecture on “Hello Kitty! Exploring Cats in Japanese Art,” by Rhiannon Paget, author of Divine Felines: The Cat in Japanese Art (2023). From Edo period prints and paintings to the origins of Maneki-Neko and the worldwide phenomenon of Hello Kitty, this program offers an engaging investigation into the role domestic cats play in Japanese art and popular culture. In-person only. More information and sign up here.

October 10–14

The International Netsuke Society 2024 convention is taking place in Boston. More information and registration here.

October 17, 10 a.m. PST

Society for Asian Art is hosting a live Zoom webinar on “Against Time: Isamu Noguchi’s Museum Experiment” with Matthew Kirsch, Curator and Director of Research at The Noguchi Museum. In 1985, American-born artist Isamu Noguchi opened his namesake museum in a renovated photoengraving factory across the street from his longtime studio in Long Island City, NY. The museum’s origins will be discussed in the context of Against Time: The Noguchi Museum 40th Anniversary Reinstallation, an adapted reinstallation of the second floor galleries, which opened on September 10. Within these galleries, Noguchi paired a selection of sculptures from the 1920s through the early 1970s with project models related to his various completed and unrealized public commissions for gardens, plazas, playgrounds, fountains and monuments, an area of his practice that was relatively unsung in 1985. More information and sign up here. Fee. Sign up deadline is October 14.

October 17, 6 p.m.

Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, is hosting a lecture “Hokusai in America: The Formation of a Collection,” by Dr. Sarah E. Thompson, Curator of Japanese Art at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, that delves into MFA Boston’s renowned collection of Japanese art—from its eccentric founders to its status as a model for museums across the U.S. In-person only. Fee. The lecture is hosted in conjunction with the Nelson-Atkins’ presentation of Hokusai: Masterpieces from the Spencer Museum of Art, the Richardson-North Collection, and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (through February 1, 2025). More information on lecture and sign up here.

Tuesday, October 22, 5 p.m. EDT

JASA is presenting a live Zoom webinar on Bunraku, also known as ningyō jōruri, a multidimensional art that marries exquisitely carved puppet figures, operated by teams of performers, with dramatic narration to shamisen accompaniment. Drawing from early ritual practices and the work of medieval itinerant bards, in the Edo period, bunraku became a popular entertainment appealing to restless urban audiences with tales of love, war and personal sacrifice. The lecturer is Claudia Orenstein, professor of Theatre at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY. More information and sign up here.

Saturday, October 26, 2–4 p.m. EDT

JASA is hosting an in-person visit and panel discussion for members at the Hammond Museum and Japanese Stroll Garden in North Salem, NY, where the exhibition Making a Good Impression: Contemporary Prints from China, Korea and Japan runs until November 17. This exhibition is co-curated by Elizabeth Hammer and JASA member Allison Tolman, who will be among the participants in the panel discussion. The deadline to sign up is October 22. The fee is $30/person. Click here to register.

Museum and Gallery Exhibitions

October 9–13, 15–20

Thomsen Gallery, New York, is exhibiting at two art fairs in Europe: Frieze Masters in London October 9-13 and Design Miami Paris October 15-20. More information here.

October 10–November 22

Ippodo Gallery, New York, is presenting Ikuro Yagi: Grand Nature, the artist’s inaugural show in the U.S. featuring works from 1989 to 2009. More than 15 painted and collaged works on Japanese washi paper, wood panels and canvas speak to a universal language of nature and city life in Japan through the visual medium of sumi ink and nihonga. The permeating theme of Yagi’s paintings is the unspoken healing effect of nature on the human soul, a gentle reminder that endless kindness is at the fingertips. More information here.

October 17–November 1

Dai Ichi Arts, Ltd., New York, is presenting SAYAKA + SAYAKA: Contemporary ceramics by Shingu and Oishi Sayaka, featuring new works by two women artists from Japan who expand the potential of “decoration” as a primary mode of artistic expression. More information here.

Through October 25

Onishi Gallery, New York, and Kogei USA, a not-for-profit committed to promoting traditional Japanese craft, are presenting two exhibitions: The Spirit of Noto: Urushi Artists of Wajima and Waves of Resilience. Held in collaboration with the Wajima Lacquer in New York Executive Committee, the exhibitions will assist earthquake recovery efforts in the Noto Peninsula, a historic center of high-quality lacquer production. More information here.

October 29–November 4

Anastasia von Seibold Japanese Art, London, is presenting Shin-hanga: New Prints for a Modern Era—Japanese Prints and Paintings from a Los Angeles Collection. The exhibition is held at Sotheby’s London as part of Asian Art in London and features 26 woodblock prints by artists including Kawase Hasui, Ohara Koson, Charles Bartlett and Elizabeth Keith. A highlight are two large watercolor paintings by Kawase Hasui. More information here.

Through January 27, 2025

Portland (Oregon) Japanese Garden is presenting Kintsugi: The Restorative Art of Naoko Fukumaru in the Garden’s Pavilion and Calvin and Mayho Tanabe Galleries. Kintsugi is an ancient method of mending damaged ceramics using urushi (natural lacquer) dusted with powdered gold. The exhibition will explore universally resonant themes of healing through the artwork of kintsugi artist and master conservator Naoko Fukumaru. More information here.

September

Lectures and Events

September 10-11

British Museum is hosting an in-person and online symposium at SOAS, University of London, on “Creative Collaborations in Kyoto, Osaka and Beyond, 1770-1900” as part of the international joint research project Creative Collaborations: Salons and Networks in Kyoto and Osaka 1780. More information and sign up here.

September 11, 10:30 a.m.–noon PDT

Society for Asian Art, San Francisco, is hosting a lecture on “Anime Comes of Age: The History of Japanese Animation, 1980-Present” with Joshua Frydman, via Zoom webinar. Fee. More information and sign up here.

September 13, 5:30 p.m. EDT and October 3, 5:30 p.m. EDT

Mary Griggs Burke Center for Japanese Art at Columbia University, New York, is hosting two upcoming lectures. On September 13, Cynthea Bogel, Japanese Art and Buddhist Visual Cultures of East Asia, will speak on “Parasculptural Ideation: Early Japanese Icons from the Bottom Up.” On October 3, Ignacio Adriasola, University of British Columbia, will give a talk on “About Walls: Limit, Space, and Landscape in Enokura Koji’s Work.” For more information, please contact JASA board member Midori Oka at mo2486@columbia.edu.

September 14, 2 p.m. EDT and September 25, 5 p.m. EDT

JASA is hosting two events in September: a visit to the Japanese galleries at Bonhams New York and discussion with print experts and specialists on September 14 (no registration required), and a live Zoom webinar on Pigments of the Imagination: Woodblock Prints by Paul Binnie on September 25. More information and registration for the webinar here.

September 29, 3–4 p.m. EDT

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is hosting a lecture (followed by a book signing) on “Art and Architecture of the Modern Japanese Home,” with Naomi Pollock, FAIA, architect, journalist, writer, and author of the new book, The Japanese House Since 1945, and John T. Carpenter, Mary Griggs Burke Curator of Japanese Art at the Met. Free with museum admission; advanced registration required. Please note: Space is limited; first come, first served. More information and registration here.

October 10-14

The International Netsuke Society 2024 convention will take place in Boston. More information and registration here.

Museum and Featured Gallery and Other Exhibitions

Until September 15

Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan, JASA’s groundbreaking exhibition in celebration of its 50th anniversary, is currently on view at its final venue, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and will close on September 15. More information here.

Until September 15

National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, DC, is presenting Imagined Neighbors: Japanese Visions of China 1680-1980, featuring 45 paintings and ceramics and representing 50 years of collecting by Mary and Cheney Cowles. More information here.

September 12–20

Dai Ichi Arts, Ltd., New York, presents The Craft of Tea: the Art of Contemporary Japanese Tea Ceramics. More information here.

September 12–20

Scholten Japanese Art, New York, is exhibiting Treasured Views: The Stipanich Collection of Kawase Hasui Woodblock Prints, a choice group of landscape prints by the 20th century shin-hanga master. More information here.

September 12–October 3

Ippodo Gallery, New York, presents Expanding Earth: New Works by Yukiya Izumita. More information here.

September 12–October 10

Carole Davenport Japanese Art, New York, presents Evocative Masks and Introspective Color Canvasses by Ted Kurahara, featuring Noh masks as well as contemporary works by Ted Kurahara. John Molloy Gallery, 49 E 78 St. #2B, New York. More information here or by writing to carole@caroledavenport.com.

September 12–October 25

Ronin Gallery, New York, is presenting Honor Among Outlaws: Selected Works from Kuniyoshi’s 108 Heroes of the Popular Suikoden. Pulling the viewer into a whirlwind of muscular limbs, lavish textiles, and lethal weapons, Kuniyoshi reimagined 12th-century Chinese bandits as fierce paragons of self-made justice for a 19th-century Japanese audience. More information here.

From September 12

Egenolf Gallery Japanese Prints is hosting an online exhibition during Asia Week, featuring select works from Hiroshige’s One Hundred Famous View of Edo. More information here.

September 13–October 25

Joan B Mirviss LTD, New York, is presenting Quiet Elegance: Ceramics by Fukumoto Fuku, the third solo show for the artist and showcasing over two dozen sculptures and tea bowls. More information here.

September 23–29

Asiatica is hosting its traditional Fall New York Trunk Show at the Hotel Lombardy and has leased retail space at 109 Thompson St., September 26-29. More information here.

Through September 29

Japan Museum Sieboldhuis, Netherlands, is hosting a “pop-up exhibition,” Hokusai: The Great Wave, featuring two copies of the iconic print lent from private collections. Through Sep 29. More information here.

October 1–25

Onishi Gallery, New York, and Kogei USA, a not-for-profit committed to promoting traditional Japanese craft, are presenting two exhibitions: The Spirit of Noto: Urushi Artists of Wajima and Waves of Resilience. Held in collaboration with the Wajima Lacquer in New York Executive Committee, the exhibitions will assist earthquake recovery efforts in the Noto Peninsula, a historic center of high-quality lacquer production. More information here.

Through May 26, 2025

Philadelphia Museum of Art is showing Firing the Imagination: Japanese Influence on French Ceramics, 1860-1910, bringing together notable examples of French ceramics that demonstrate tremendous innovation in the field of artistic pottery in the 19th and early 20th centuries. More information here.

Through January 13, 2025

Also on view is Visions of the Land in Edo Japan, including recently acquired prints and paintings. More information here.

Through August 3, 2025

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is presenting The Three Perfections: Japanese Poetry, Calligraphy, and Paintings from the Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection, showcasing over 160 rare works drawn from more than 250 paintings and calligraphic works donated or promised to the museum. More information here.

Other Exhibitions and Events

Through October 5

Nara Roesler Gallery, New York, is presenting Japan In/Out Brazil. More information here.

Through October 26

Seizan Gallery, New York, is presenting Eri Iwasaki: The Light Over There. More information here.

Through November 2

Alison Bradley Projects, New York, is presenting Motohiro Takeda: Something To Remember You By. More information here.

July

Lectures and Events

July 13, 9 p.m. EDT

Japan Society, New York, is hosting a screening of Shunga: The Lost Japanese Erotica as part of the Japanese Film Festival “Japan Cuts.” More information and tickets here.

July 18, 1 p.m. EDT; 6 p.m. BST

Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures, UK, is hosting an in-person and Zoom lecture on “City Life and Salon Culture in Kyoto and Osaka, 1770-1900,” by Dr. Akiko Yano of the British Museum. More information and sign up (on Zoom) here.

July 19, 1 p.m. EDT

JASA is hosting a special tour of the exhibition Imagined Neighbors: Japanese Visions of China 1680-1980 at the National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, DC. The tour will be led by Japanese art curator Dr. Frank Feltens, along with collector and JASA member Cheney Cowles. The exhibition features 45 paintings and ceramics and represents 50 years of collecting by Mary and Cheney Cowles. More information and sign up here.

Museum and Featured Gallery Exhibitions

July 19–December 8

Japan Museum SieboldHuis, Leiden, Netherlands, is exhibiting Kimono: Mirror of Modernity, examining the unique fusion of Japanese tradition and Western modernity in the extraordinary Manavello collection. Highlighting the transition from the 19th to the 20th century, the kimonos reflect the new era of modernity that Japan embraced during this period. More information here.

July 25–August 9

Dai Ichi Arts, Ltd, New York, is presenting Tales of Seto: An Exhibition of Ko-Seto Ceramics, examining the old origins of ceramics from the Seto region encompassing a range of historical periods from Edo to Meiji and Showa. More information here.

Through August 4

Brooklyn Museum’s major exhibition Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo (feat. Takashi Murakami) features the museum’s celebrated full set of the Edo prints (shown for the first time in 24 years), plus related pieces from the museum’s collection of Japanese material culture. An installation at the end of the exhibition features a recreation of the entire series (in various sizes) by celebrated Japanese pop artist Takashi Murakami, making their debut in Brooklyn. More information here.

Through August 15

Ronin Gallery, New York, is presenting Masahiko Minami: The Logic of Memory. Minami (b. 1968), the winner of the sixth annual Ronin Globus OnBeat Artist-in-Residence Program, works with charcoal and graphite to create minimalist landscapes in dramatic contrast. Like fleeting moments in a collective memory, his works offer a quiet refuge from the realities of daily life. More information here.

Through August 25

Portland Japanese Garden (OR) is presenting Painting with Thread: The Art and Culture of Fukusa, showcasing the art of gift-giving through the beauty of fukusa—ornate textiles traditionally made of Japanese silk that were draped over formal gifts and presented amongst prominent families during the Edo period (1603–1868) through Taishō period (1912–1926) in Japan. More information here. (There is also an exhibition of fukusa currently on view at the Peranakan Museum in Singapore. More information here.)

Through September 15

Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan, JASA’s groundbreaking exhibition in celebration of its 50th anniversary, is now open in its final venue, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. A number of special events and activities are planned in conjunction with the exhibition. More information here.

Through October 20

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is presenting Collecting Inspiration: Edward C. Moore at Tiffany & Co., featuring more than 180 extraordinary examples from the personal collection of the creative force who led Tiffany & Co. to unparalleled originality and success during the second half of the 19th century. Moore amassed a vast collection of decorative arts of exceptional quality and in various media, including Japanese baskets and metalwork. A defining figure in the history of American silver, Moore played a pivotal role in shaping the legendary Tiffany design aesthetic and the evolution of The Met’s collection. More information here.

Other Exhibitions and Events

August 22

Noted Japanese sculptor Hiroyuki Asano will install his 10-foot granite sculpture Portal to the Universe at the Graceland Arboretum and Cemetery in Chicago. It will be his first monumental work in the US. More information at Carole Davenport Japanese Art.

Through August 27

Seizan Gallery, New York, is presenting Rock, Paper, Salt, featuring recent works by Hiroyoshi Asaka, Yasuko Hasumura, and Moeko Maeda. More information here.

June

Lectures and Events

June 13, 5 p.m. EDT

JASA is presenting a live Zoom webinar on Exceptional Japanese Houses: Residential Design From 1945 to the Present, by Naomi Pollock. Since the Pacific War, Japanese architects have been producing some of the world’s most innovative homes. These are the subject of architect Naomi Pollock’s new book,The Japanese House Since 1945. Spanning eight decades, this book presents the most compelling examples and highlights key developments in form, organization, material, architectural expression, and family living. The author will share stories about the residences and the people who lived there. More information and sign up here.

June 20.12 p.m. EDT

JASA is hosting a special tour of Toshiko Takaezu: World’s Within at the Noguchi Museum in Long Island City, New York. Featuring approximately 200 objects from public and private collections across the country, Toshiko Takaezu: Worlds Within presents a comprehensive portrait of the life and work of clay artist Takaezu. This chronological retrospective charts the development of Takaezu’s hybrid practice over seven decades, documenting her early student work in Hawai‘i and at the Cranbrook Academy through her years teaching at the Cleveland Institute of Art and later at Princeton University. Tour is limited to 15 people and the cost is $20. Sign up deadline is June 13. To sign up, click here.

July 12-14; sign up deadline: June 10

In conjunction with the opening of JASA’s 50^th anniversary exhibition, Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (the exhibition’s the final venue), JASA is organizing a special three-day member program in Houston. Details about the trip were emailed to members on June 1. If you did not receive the email or have questions, please reach out to Allison Tolman at allisontolman@gmail.com. You can also register here . The tour is limited to 25 people.

Exhibitions

June 7–15

Cleveland Museum of Art is presenting Contemporary Calligraphy and Clay, examining the bond of calligraphy and clay through contemporary artworks set in the modern space of the museum gallery. More information here.

June 11–July 31

Onishi Gallery, New York, is presenting Color of Blue in Kogei. More information here.

June 13–28

Dai Ichi Arts, Ltd., New York, is presenting Earthly Forms: Ceramic Works by Hiruma Kazuyo & Matsutani Fumio, a two-person exhibition showcasing new artworks by these contemporary ceramic artists. Together, their works create a dynamic dialogue about surface, process, nature and material, blending tradition with contemporary artistry, and highlighting their unique journeys and creative processes. More information here.

June 22

Carole Davenport Japanese Art, New York, is presenting an in-person event in conjunction with Japanese Porcelain Europ. More information at 646-249-8500 or carole@caroledavenport.com.

Through June 29

Ippodo Gallery, New York, is presenting Laura de Santillana: Echoes of Her Gaze, Impressions of Tokyo and Kyoto in Glass. Late in the artist’s career, her experiments in color reached new heights through collaboration with Czech engineers, resulting in unique and vibrant color gradations fading into multi-chromatic glass. Renowned as an expert in colored glass, she overcame the medium’s challenges. More information here.

June 26—August 23

Joan B Mirviss LTD, New York, is showing Focus on Contemporary Masters of Hagi and Oribe, featuring a small selection of recent and current masters of Hagi and Oribe wares, traditions that originated during the first golden age of Japanese ceramics, the Momoyama era (1573- 1615). But it was not until after the Meiji restoration, in the late 19th century, that both Hagi and Oribe-glazed works were produced for and reached a broader audience in Japan and the newly opened international export market. More information here.

May

Lectures and Events

Monday, May 13, 5 p.m. EDT

JASA is presenting a live Zoom webinar by Dr. Andreas Marks, Mary Griggs Burke Curator of Japanese and Korean Art and Director of the Clark Center at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, who will discuss his newly-published book of Hiroshige’s One Hundred Famous Views of Edo deluxe editions. Drawn from 32 different museums and private collections, the book is the first to present all deluxe versions printed that incorporate special printing features like color gradation. Dr. Marks reveals that no complete set of the deluxe versions is held in a single collection today. More information and sign up here.

Monday, June 3

A Japanese cruise ship, Asuka II, will be docked in New York as a floating gallery of Japanese craftsmanship and the public is invited to an exclusive, one-day exploration of Japanese Kogei-Art. After a private tour of the exhibition, a symposium, “Unveiling the Essence of Kogei-Art,” will take place including two Japanese Living National Treasures: Kazumi Murosei, Japanese Urushi Lacquer and gold maki-e, and Genjiro Okura, 15th generation Noh theater actor. Metropolitan Museum Curator of Japanese Decorative Arts Monika Bincsik will also participate as the interpreter and commentator. Space is very limited so participants should sign up in advance as soon as possible here. More information is available at sakuya_mio@jpf.go.jp.

Exhibitions

May 15–June 6

Ippodo Gallery, New York, is presenting Laura de Santillana: Echoes of Her Gaze, Impression of Tokyo and Kyoto in Glass, the artist’s second posthumous solo exhibition in New York. The show features a curation of over 25 glass artworks evoking the dichotomy of Tokyo’s neon lights and subdued glow of Kyoto’s aesthetics. More information here.

Through May 16

Dai Ichi Arts, New York, is presenting Enchanted Objects, a solo exhibition featuring works by Kim Hono whose creations range from geometric to biomorphic and decorative pieces, exuding profound expression. The exhibition offers a window into his remarkable professional journey as a contemporary studio potter and artist. More information here.

Through May 18

Thomsen Gallery, New York, is presenting Japanese Ceramics: Medieval to Contemporary. More information here.

Through May 20

Carole Davenport Japanese Art, New York, is continuing to show Japanese Porcelain, the Early Years, with recent additions. More information here.

Through May 24

Onishi Gallery, New York is continuing to show its two Asia Week New York 2024 exhibitions, Inoue Manji/David Stanley Hewett and Kogei and Art. More information here.

June 1, 2024–February 16, 2025

Minneapolis Institute of Art is presenting Bizen: Contemporary Expressions of Japan’s Ancient Pottery. Originating from today’s Okayama prefecture on the Seto Inland Sea, the history of Bizen reaches back to the 14th century, peaking during the late 16th century when the tea masters in and around Kyoto, the center of culture in Japan, found it most appealing. With the modernization of Japan in the mid-19th century, Bizen almost disappeared, but the tradition was revived in the 1930s and many artists since have explored its potential. More information here.

Through June 10

Portland Japanese Garden, Oregon, is celebrating 65 years of the Portland and Sapporo Sister City relationship with the exhibition Vision of Place, which includes the work of a local Portland photographer and Hokkaido-based photographers to showcase the beauty of Japan’s northernmost prefecture, Hokkaido. More information here.

Through June 15

Seizan Gallery, New York, is presenting Taro Tabuchi: Yohen Hakuji and James Isherwood: Thaw. More information here.

Through June 21

Joan B Mirviss LTD, New York, is presenting Layered Clay: Matsui Kōsei, Miyashita Zenji, Ogata Kamio, and Others, celebrating the extraordinary achievements of three past masters who revitalized this ancient technique and creatively expanded the seemingly simple idea of building clay upon clay. The exhibition will also feature works by seven other Japanese ceramic artists who were contemporaries of or successors to the masters’ innovative legacy. More information here.

Through July 7

Japan Museum SieboldHuis, Leiden, the Netherlands, is exhibiting Turbulent Times: Dutch-Japanese Relations and the Last Days of the Samurai (1853-1867), examining how the Dutch and Japanese navigated together through the mid-19th century—a time of great unrest filled with political and scientific changes in which both countries assumed a new role on the world stage. Included in the exhibition is Souvenir du Japon, a rare set of lithographs with views of Deshima, Nagasaki, and surroundings. More information here.

Through September 2

Museum of Fine Arts Boston is presenting Songs for Modern Japan, Popular Music and Graphic Design, 1900–1950, exploring how sheet music covers provide a window into Japanese society and culture during this period of immense transformation. About 100 sheet music covers from the collection of Mary and Robert Levenson—alongside paintings, photographs, textiles, music, film clips and musical instruments from the period—capture the dynamic effects of international artistic exchange and the profound societal shifts in a globalizing Japan. More information here. In addition, Phase One of the museum’s renovated Arts of Japan galleries, including the Temple Room, will open on May 11. More information here.

April

Lectures and Events

Wednesday, April 3, 5 p.m. EDT

JASA is presenting a live Zoom Webinar: Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo. On view from April 5 through August 4, Brooklyn Museum’s upcoming exhibition of Hiroshige’s One Hundred Famous Views of Edo will feature new versions of the original views by the iconic Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, with photographs by Ȧlex Bueno of some of the contemporary sites of Hiroshige’s designs. This panel discussion includes catalog author and historian Henry Smith, Professor Emeritus, Columbia University; Joan Cummins, Senior Curator, Asian Art, Brooklyn Museum and exhibition curator; and Ȧlex Bueno, Project Assistant and Professor, Centre for Global Education, Tokyo, who will discuss photographic images in the exhibition. Click here to register for the Zoom event: April 3 zoom webinar.

April 12

The Art History Department at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, will host the symposium Japanese Painting Circa 1500: A Time of Upheaval and Innovation. The years surrounding the turn of the 16th century marked a significant inflection point in Japanese cultural history as the practices of painting became increasingly decentralized and diversified in the transition from the late medieval to early modern eras. The symposium features presentations by some of the leading scholars and curators in the field. It will be presented live on site and also live-streamed. More information and registration available by clicking on QR code on brochure here.

Thursday, April 18, 11:30 a.m. EDT

JASA is hosting an-person visit to Brooklyn Museum (200 Eastern Parkway) with Curator of Asian Art Joan Cummins to view exhibition Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo (featuring Takashi Murakami), which runs April 5 through August 4.

Thursday, April 18, 5 p.m. EDT

Joan B Mirviss LTD, New York, is presenting a live Zoom webinar on Art of the People: Exploring the Mingei Film Archive. Perhaps one of the best-known aspects of Japanese ceramics in the West remains the Mingei folk art movement and its leading proponents, Hamada Shōji and Bernard Leach. In this gallery talk, filmmaker Marty Gross will share his extraordinary mission to restore, record, preserve and archive the films of and about Mingei from the early 20th century in his project, The Mingei Film Archive. More information and sign up here.

Thursday, April 19, 10 a.m.–5:30 p.m. PDT

University of California, Los Angeles, is presenting a one-day seminar on “Edo Outsiders: Ainu and Ryukyuan Art” as part of its series Open Edo: Diverse, Ecological, and Global Perspectives on Japanese Art, 1603-1868, organized by UCLA Art History Professor Kristopher Kersey. In an effort to underscore the diversity of early modern Japan, this conference will direct attention to two groups who are often marginalized if not absent in narratives of early modern Japanese art. Recent anniversaries—the 150th anniversary of settler colonialism in Hokkaidō and the fiftieth anniversary of the reversion of the Ryūkyūs from the USA to Japan—have brought renewed critical attention to the art of these two groups. While much scholarship on Ryūkyūan and Ainu art has focused on modernity, this conference seeks to shift the focus deeper in the archive, to the 17th to 18th centuries. In-person event only at the UCLA William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, Los Angeles. More information and sign up here.

Exhibitions

Through April 18

Legion of Honor Museum, San Francisco, is presenting Japanese Prints in Transition: From the Floating World to the Modern World. Featuring permanent collection works from the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts that haven’t been displayed for more than a decade, this two-part exhibition (the floating world and the modern world) highlights this stylistic transition and the work of one artist, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, who successfully spanned them both. His distinctive, sometimes eccentric, images serve as a link between the two eras. More information here.

Through April 19

Joan B Mirviss LTD, New York, is presenting Eternal Partnership: Japanese Ceramics in Blue and White, examining this timeless color combination in the hands of modern and contemporary Japanese ceramic artists. Kyoto-based gallery artist Kondō Takahiro, whose work is currently exhibiting at the Brooklyn Museum, will be present for in-person events hosted by Joan B Mirviss LTD during Asia Week New York. He debuts a new series of his marbleized clay sculptural works, created especially for Joan B Mirviss LTD’s gallery show, titled, Clear Water. More information here.

Through April 26

Ronin Gallery, New York, is presenting “No Room for Excuses”: Sosaku Hanga from the 1940s & 1950s. Celebrating originality and authorship, the sosaku hanga, or “creative print,” movement embraced the idea of transformation. From the mind of the artist, an image evolved through knife and ink, shaped by the artist’s intention, emotion, and their relationship with their materials and tools. While the origins of the movement trace to the turn of the 20th century, sosaku hanga experienced its own transformation in audience, patronage, and acclaim following WWII. Feastured artists include Koshiro Onchi, Shiko Munakata, Jun’ichiro Sekino, Kiyoshi Saito, Yoshitoshi Mori, and many more. More information here.

Through June 30

Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas, Austin, is presenting The Floating World: Masterpieces of Edo Japan from the Worcester Art Museum, featuring more than 130 woodblock prints and painted scrolls from one of history’s most vibrant artistic eras. More information here.

March

Lectures and Events

March 20, 5 p.m. EST

As part of Asia Week 2024, JASA is presenting a special lecture, When Zen Becomes Political: Zen and Soft/Hard Power, by Frank Feltens, Curator of Japanese Art at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art. The lecture will take place at Japan Society Auditorium, 333 East 47^th Street, New York, NY. It also will be webcast live via Zoom. Registration in advance is required. Click here to attend the lecture in person. Click here to attend the lecture via Zoom. Afterward, JASA will hold its annual meeting of members in the Japan Society auditorium. At 4 p.m., immediately preceding Dr. Feltens’ lecture, JASA members will have the special opportunity to tour Japan Society’s new exhibition, None Whatsoever: Zen Paintings from the Gitter-Yelen Collection, led by the new gallery director, Michele Bambling. Registration is required by March 10. Please click here to register: 4pm Gallery tour.

April 12

Exhibitions

March 8–April 26

March 12–28

Dai Ichi Arts, New York, is presenting Ceramic Frontiers: Sodeisha and Shikokai in Post-War Japanese Art, celebrating ceramics from two mid-20th century Japanese sculptural ceramic movements that emerged concurrently during the post-war period. The show will exhibit new works by the celebrated artist Hayashi Yasuo on the occasion of Asia Week New York. More information here.

March 14–22

Onishi Gallery, New York, is presenting Inoue Manji / David Stanley Hewett, bringing together the work of two prominent artists based in Japan, one Japanese and one American. The exhibition marks the inauguration of KOGEI USA, a nonprofit dedicated to revitalizing Japan’s world-famous KOGEI (art crafts) under the banner Securing Our Heritage, Nurturing Our Traditions, Building Our Futures. The exhibition promotes one of KOGEI USA’s key goals: the formation of new creative links between Japanese and non-Japanese masters who share a passion for preserving and handing on the best traditional hand-made arts. Mar 14-22. More information here.

March 14–22

Scholten Japanese Art, New York, is presenting Collecting the Master: The Binnie Collection of Hiroshi Yoshida Paintings, assembled by the prominent contemporary woodblock printmaker Paul Binnie. Aside from his well-known print career, Yoshida had a very active life as a painter and exhibited in a range of Japanese government-sponsored exhibitions, private art society group shows, and commercial galleries. More information here.

March 14–22

For Asia Week New York 2024, Orientations Gallery, New York, and Oriental Treasure Box Gallery, San Diego, are exhibiting on The Meiji Aesthetic: Influence from Edo to Now, marking the 11th anniversary of their collaborative vetted exhibitions. Objects by accomplished and recognized artists in the fields of cloisonné enamels, metalwork, ceramics, art lacquer, painting, basketry, carving, and textiles will be on view at the Nippon Club, 145 W. 57 St., New York (closed Sun, March 17).. Imperial Court Artists and Living National Treasures are included as well. An illustrative lecture by Hollis Goodall, Curator Emerita of Japanese Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, will accompany the exhibition on Monday, March 18 at 3 p.m. Please call (212) 772-7705 to reserve a seat. This event will fill up quickly.

March 14–April 4

Ippodo Gallery, New York, is showing Cosmic Sound: Master Paintings by Ken Matsubara, a culmination of the artist’s concepts featuring 20 of the painter’s unique artworks. Matsubara showcases a series spanning his long and illustrious career, including three works depicting the auspicious and fearsome dragon zodiac, the spectacular 12-panel Kūkai’s View and versions of Scenery, and the Moon Sound. More information here.

March 14–April 19

Joan B Mirviss LTD, New York, is presenting Eternal Partnership: Japanese Ceramics in Blue and White, examining this timeless color combination in the hands of modern and contemporary Japanese ceramic artists. Kyoto-based gallery artist Kondō Takahiro, whose work is currently exhibiting at the Brooklyn Museum, will be present for in-person events hosted by Joan B Mirviss LTD during Asia Week New York. He debuts a new series of his marbleized clay sculptural works, created especially for Joan B Mirviss LTD’s gallery show, titled, Clear Water. More information here.

March 14–November 10

Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT, is showing Year of the Dragon, celebrating 2024, the Year of the Dragon, with a presentation of nearly 30 artworks spanning from the 17th century to the present day. The selection demonstrates a long, complex, and continuing artistic tradition around this fantastical creature. More information here.

March 16–17

Egenolf Gallery Japanese Prints is presenting Supernatural: Cat Demons, Ogres and Shapeshifters, featuring a select group of yokai and yurei themed works alongside classic ukiyo-e and shin hanga Japanese prints. Showing at the Conrad Midtown Hotel, New York. More information here.

March 16–September 3

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, is showing Imagined Neighbors: Japanese Visions of China 1680-1980, in the Freer Gallery. The exhibition presents Japanese artworks from the Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection, given to the National Museum of Asian Art between 2018 and 2022. The Cowles Collection is arguably the largest and most comprehensive group of Japanese literati works outside of Japan. The paintings and calligraphy in this exhibition fuse reality with imagination and remain important to understanding the continuing, complex engagement of Japanese artists with China, to them both a real and an imagined place. More information here.

Also on view, through early 2026 in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Striking Objects: Contemporary Japanese Metalwork displays 17 contemporary Japanese metalworks alongside 18 metalworking tools that came to the museum as part of archival materials from the Shirley Z. Johnson Collection. Striking Objects introduces audiences to how a basic metalworking technique—hammering—can achieve a variety of visual effects. More information here.

March 21–June 9

After a highly successful inaugural run at Asia Society Museum in New York last year, Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan—JASA’s fiftieth anniversary exhibition—the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago will present the exhibition until June 9, when it moves to the final venue, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. More information here. JASA members will receive information shortly about events in connection with the exhibition.

February

Lectures and Events

February 7, 5 p.m. EST

JASA’s Feb online Zoom lecture features Birmingham Museum of Art Lead Curator Katie Paul, who will present on “Surprises in the South: Japanese Art in Alabama.” Sign up here.

February 20, 7 p.m. PST

Japan Foundation Los Angeles is presenting an online lecture on “Japan’s Yakishime Ceramics” by independent Japanese art scholar and JASA member Meher McArthur. The term “yakishime” refers to the firing of unglazed clay vessels at a high temperature so that the clay vitrifies, creating water-proof and durable stoneware ceramics. The scorch marks of Bizen ware, the feldspar speckles of Shigaraki ware, and the warm, earthy tones of Tokoname ware have made these wares beloved in the tea ceremony and collected widely for centuries. More information and registration here.

February 27, 11 a.m. EST

JASA is organizing a special tour for members of the current rotation of Anxiety and Hope in Japanese Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art with Dr. Aaron Rio, Associate Curator of Japanese Art. This visit will focus on the third rotation of four in this year-long exhibition in the Met’s Japanese galleries. More information and sign up (by Feb 17) here.

February 29, 6:30 p.m. EST

Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada, is hosting emerging Japanese artist Yuta Niwa in a keynote presentation “Of Catfish and Earthquakes: The Contemporary Art of Yuta Niwa” in support of the online exhibition,Aftershocks: Japanese Earthquake Prints, that focuses on his reinterpretation of these important historical art forms for contemporary audiences. Hosted by Akiko Takesue, Niwa’s keynote presentation, supported by visual illustrations, will showcase his work, which incorporates traditional Japanese painting techniques and materials into artworks dealing with modern disasters such as earthquakes and infectious diseases. Feb 29 at 6:30 pm (in person only). More information and sign up here.

Exhibitions

February 8–22

Dai Ichi Arts, Ltd., New York, is presenting Soil to Splendor: The Art of Wood Fired Ceramics from Japan, featuring ceramics that are unglazed wares fired at extremely high temperatures. The exhibition focuses on modern and contemporary interpretations of this primordial craft, where the essence of ash and clay is reignited. More information here.

Until February 15

Ippodo Gallery, New York, is showing Floating Vessels: Stoneware by Mitsukuni Misaki. The artist sculpts shapes that are visually appealing and serve a purpose. The surfaces of his pieces are delicately textured, achieved by rolling them with a braided rope and then hand-painted with multiple layers of colored slip. More information here.

February 15–18

Scholten Japanese Art and The Tolman Collection, both of New York, are exhibiting at the 2024 IFPDA Print Fair at the Park Avenue Armory, New York. More information on the fair here. The IFPDA is graciously extending VIP passes to the show to JASA members. Please reach out to JASA membership coordinator Cheryl Gall at jasa@japaneseartsoc.org if you are interested in a pass.

February 23–April 27

Japan Foundation Los Angeles is celebrating the Year of the Dragon with the exhibition Tatsu: Depictions of Dragons in Japanese Art. Featuring art works from three local collections, the exhibition celebrates the dragon as a beloved motif in a wide range of Japanese art, from paintings and prints to ceramics, metalwork, and textiles. More information here.

Until February

Thomsen Gallery, New York, is presenting Japanese Gold Lacquer Boxes. More information here.

Through November 10

Minneapolis Institute of Art is showing Tanaka Ryōhei: Portrait of a Home / Etched Memories.

January

Lectures and Events

Until January 7

JASA’s 50^th anniversary exhibition, Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan at Asia Society Museum in New York will close on January 7. The exhibition opens at the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago on March 21. More information here.

January 9, 2 p.m. EST; exhibition until January 21

In connection with the exhibition Out of Bounds: Japanese Women Artists in Fluxus, at Japan Society, New York, JASA is presenting a special conversation about “Japanese Women in Fluxus” with Dr. Midori Yoshimoto, Professor of Art History and Gallery Director, New Jersey City University, and Danielle Johnson, Researcher and Fluxus Scholar, previously Curatorial Assistant, MoMA. The exhibition is the first to fully explore the essential role of Japanese women in Fluxus, a movement instigated in the 1960s that helped contemporary artists define new modes of artistic expression. Near the 60th anniversary of the movement’s founding, this exhibition highlights the contributions of four pioneering Japanese artists—Shigeko Kubota (1937-2015), Yoko Ono (b. 1932), Takako Saito (b. 1929) and Mieko Shiomi (b. 1938)—and contextualizes their role within Fluxus and the broader artistic movements of the 1960s and beyond. More information and sign up here.

January 18, 7 p.m. PST (10 p.m. EST)

Japan Foundation, Los Angeles, is presenting an online lecture on “Ningyo: The Beauty and Artistry of Japanese Dolls,” by independent scholar and JASA member Meher McArthur. Japan’s dolls are famous throughout the world as elegant works of art that are more for display than play. Hina dolls, in particular, wear kimono and elaborate hairstyles, and for several centuries have been central in Hina Matsuri, a traditional festival celebrating girls. More information and registration here.

January 24, 5 p.m. EST

JASA is presenting a live Zoom webinar with Dr. Aaron Rio, associate curator of Japanese Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, on the exhibition he curated, Anxiety and Hope in Japanese Art (on view until July 14). The talk will focus on the third rotation of four in this year-long exhibition in the Met’s Japanese galleries. The exhibition begins with sacred images from early Japan that speak to concerns about death, dying, and the afterlife or that were created in response to other uncertainties, such as war and natural disaster. The presentation then proceeds chronologically, highlighting medieval Buddhist images of paradises and hells, Zen responses to life and death, depictions of war and pilgrimage, and the role of protective and hopeful images in everyday life. More information and sign up here.

Exhibitions

January 13–May 5

Shumei Hall Gallery, Pasadena, California, is presenting Elegance and Emotion: The Unique Dolls of Kimiko Muraoka Koyanagi. Though the tall, slender forms of Koyanagi’s dolls convey an elegance and a stillness, their faces and sometimes even the gentle tilt of their heads suggest strong emotions beneath the surface. More information here.

January 19–28, Booth E5

Joan B Mirviss LTD, New York, is showing Taking Space, Making Space: Japanese Women Ceramic Artists at The Winter Show at the Park Avenue Armory, New York. More information here. Also exhibiting at the show is Thomsen Gallery, New York. Booth C6. More information here.

Until January 20

SEIZAN Gallery, New York, is presenting its winter group show Traveling, featuring works by Yuichi Kashima, Akihiro Misaki and Kaz Watabe. More information here.

January 26–28, February 3–4

Egenolf Gallery and The Tolman Collection of New York will be exhibiting at the Portland (OR) Fine Print Fair 2024, in January and the Los Angeles Fine Print Fair 2024, part of Rare Books LA, in Pasadena, Calif., in February.

Until February 27

Ronin Gallery, New York, is presenting Birds of Winter: Keinen Imao (1845–1923), featuring the winter volume of the artist’s Flower-and-Bird Painting Manual (1891–92). In addition, the gallery will feature a selection of new acquisitions by artists including Hasui, Hiroshi Yoshida, Hiroshige and Hokusai. More information here.

Until March 4

Portland (OR) Japanese Garden is presenting Masterpieces in Miniature: The Art of Netsuke Sculptures, featuring a selection from the garden’s collection of netsuke. Small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, these miniature carvings invite one to experience Japanese culture from the nation’s vibrant Edo period (1603–1868). More information here.

Until January 26, 2025

San Antonio Museum of Art is presenting Samurai Spirit: Weapons, Accessories, and Paintings, featuring two 14th-century swords: a wakizashi, rated a Jūyo Token, dated to 1363 and signed by the maker, Yoshioka Ishimonji Sukehide; and a katana, a longer sword typically wielded with two hands. Other samurai weapons, decorated sword fittings, and hanging scroll paintings will round out this introduction to a major aspect of traditional Japanese culture. More information here.

December

Lectures and Events

December 12, 7 p.m. PT

Japan Foundation, Los Angeles, is hosting an online lecture on “Netsuke: Masterpieces of Japanese Miniature Sculpture” presented by independent scholar and JASA member Meher McArthur. More information and registration here.

December 14, 5 p.m. ET

JASA is presenting a Zoom webinar on “Seeing the Trees: Ecology and Imagination in Japanese Art,” presented by Dr. Rachel Saunders, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Curator of Asian Art at the Harvard Art Museums and JASA board member. What good is art history in our era of climate catastrophe? What productive work can the study of Japanese art do in the ground between care of the planet and visual art? Researching, exhibiting, conserving and collecting Japanese art are activities usually undertaken in settings far removed from the living bodies and environments out of which the works themselves were produced. What are the implications of having separated ourselves from this knowledge historically, and the dangers of continuing to do so now? This talk asks how encounters with non-human beings—including trees, plants and animals—in Japanese art can guide us in the stewardship of the metaphorical forest of richly interconnected actions and relationships that have the capacity to help us envision our world differently. More information and registration here.

December 14, 5 p.m. ET

Joan B. Mirviss LTD, New York, is presenting a Zoom Gallery talk on “Taking Space, Making Space: Japanese Women Ceramic Artists.” Coinciding with the exhibition Radical Clay: Contemporary Japanese Women Artists, showing at the Art Institute of Chicago December 16,2023–June 3, 2024, the talk will explore the vital role of 20th- and 21st-century Japanese women clay artists within Japanese ceramics today. Drawn from the Carol and Jeffrey Horvitz Collection, the museum exhibition features work by 36 artists, 20 of whom are gallery artists. Panelists include key figures who contributed to this important exhibition, including collector and museum patron Carol Horvitz, curator and Radical Clay catalogue contributor Hollis Goodall, and two prominent gallery artists featured in the exhibition, Tashima Etsuko and Tomita Mikiko, who represent different generational perspectives. More information and sign up here.

December 21, 6 p.m. GMT (1 p.m. ET)

John T. Carpenter, Mary Griggs Burke Curator of Japanese Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is presenting a lecture on “Nihonga: Restyling the Past and Present in Modern Japanese Painting” at the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures in the UK. Nihonga, or “Japanese-style painting” of the late 19th and early 20th century, can be seen as a “renewal” of traditional Japanese pictorial themes and painting techniques in the modern age. This presentation will focus on The Met’s recent acquisitions in this area to explore how prominent Nihonga artists—such as Hashimoto Kansetsu, Kainoshō Tadaoto, Tsuji Kakō, Kaburaki Kiyokata and Enomoto Chikatoshi, among others—used the human figure as a subject in early 20th-century paintings. Topics will include: China in Taishō-period Nihonga painting; Hashimoto Kansetsu and transmitting Chinese painting themes to Japan; Taisho moga (“modern girls”); and Western influences in Nihonga. The lecture will be delivered in person and live streamed. More information and registration (required) here.

Exhibitions

December 9, 2023–2026

National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, is presenting Knotted Clay: Raku Ceramics and Tea, featuring tea bowls, water containers and other vessels in the museum’s permanent collection that demonstrate the glazes and forms unique to Raku ware. More information here.

Until December 10

Presenting at Art Miami are Seizan Gallery, New York, booth AM228, and Ippodo Gallery, New York, booth G35. Seizan is showing works by Ruiji Aiba, Astrid Köppe, Yen Yen-Jui Lai, Asako Tabata and Motohide Takami. Ippodo is presenting Forms and Formations, introducing a new caliber of Japanese art in a variety of techniques by several masters whose work represents the current state of Japanese fine art: ceramic, glass, lacquer, large sculpture, painting, and architecture.

December 14, 2023–January 13, 2024

Ippodo Gallery, New York, is showing Shota Suzuki: Eternal Garden, the second solo exhibition of sculpted metalworks by the renowned artist from Kyoto. Showcasing 26 new pieces, the exhibition features intricate arrangements of dandelions, gingko leaves, sakura branches and violets hand-wrought from precious metals including gold, silver, nickel and brass. Dec 14 – Jan 13, 2024. More information here.

Until December 20

Thomsen Gallery, New York, is presenting Golden Treasures: Japanese Gold Lacquer Boxes. More information here.

December 21, 2023–May 6, 2024

Asian Art Museum of San Francisco is showing Japanese Ink Paintings, presenting highlights from the permanent collection that illustrate how Japanese artists from the 15^th to the early 17^th century engaged with Chinese ink painting styles. More information here.

Until December 22

Onishi Gallery, New York, is presenting Contemporary Japanese Ceramics as Statement, featuring Konno Tomoko, Suzuki Miki and Ohi Toshio Chozaemon XI, whose works are treated as artfully designed sculptures that make a statement and engage in meaningful dialogue with the interior of a home. More information here.

Until January 4, 2024

Dai Ichi Arts, Ltd, New York, is presenting Winter Kogei Collection, featuring new works by gallery artists Kim Hono, Ikenishi Go and Komago Tetsutaro, who explore “Kogei” in contemporary vessels. More information here.

Until August 4, 2024

Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon, Eugene, is presenting Woman Was the Sun: Art of Japanese Women. In conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the University of Oregon’s Center for the Study of Women in Society, this exhibition celebrates Japanese women through paintings, calligraphy, prints, sculpture and decorative art from the permanent collection augmented with a selection of distinguished loans. More information here.

Robert Yellin Yakimono Gallery, Kyoto, is presenting Ko-Bizen, Contemporary Bizen, Kaneshige Toyo and Rosanjin Bizen, along with many other Six Old Kilns Works. More information here. JASA is pleased to welcome Yakimono Gallery as our newest advertiser in Impressions!

Online

Scholten Japanese Art, New York, is presenting Paul Binnie: 30 Prints for 30 Years of Printmaking, a special online exhibition of some of the artist’s most rare and sought-after works, including such rarities as his 1994 Nocturne and the 2005 Butterfly Bow, both of which have long proven (nearly) impossible to acquire by his most ardent collectors. More information here.

November

Lectures and Events

November 8, 5 p.m. ET

In celebration of our recently opened 50^th anniversary exhibition Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan at Asia Society Museum, JASA is hosting a live Zoom webinar with three curators who offer their perspectives on Meiji art and culture. The art of the Meiji era (1868-1912) was the first to be consciously collected as “contemporary Japanese art” in the United States. In this event, Takurō Tsunoda (curator at the Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Cultural History), in conversation with Bradley M. Bailey and Chelsea Foxwell (co-curators of Meiji Modern), will reflect on recent curatorial interpretations of the art and culture of the Meiji era. More information and sign up here.

November 15, 2 p.m. ET

JASA is hosting a members tour of the exhibition A Model Workshop: Margaret Lowengrund and the Contemporaries at the Print Center New York, led by co-curator Christina Weyl, who will speak particularly about the Japanese printmakers involved with the workshop/gallery in the 1950s. More information and sign up here.

November 30, 6 p.m. ET

Burke Center at Columbia University, New York, is hosting Masaaki Arakawa, visiting professor from Gakushuin University, and Frank Feltens, Curator of Japanese Art of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, who will discuss the famed potter Ogata Kenzan (1663–1743), the background and impact of his tradition, and questions of authenticity and continuity in Kenzan ware. In-person only. 807 Schermerhorn Hall, Columbia University. RSVP: mo2486@columbia.edu.

Exhibitions

November 9—13

Carole Davenport, New York, is exhibiting at Salon Art & Design at the Park Avenue Armory, presenting Japanese artworks from porcelain to sculpture to lacquer and painting. More information here.

November 9—December 16

Seizan Gallery, New York, is showing Things She Carries, a group exhibition of three female artists, Miné Okubo, Aya Fujioka and Yukiko Hata, who share a deep commitment to reconsider Japan’s historical representation on WWII and its impact on their lived experience in contemporary society. More information here.

Until November 13

Dai Ichi Arts, New York, is presenting new works by two ceramic artists Goto Hideki and Higashida Shigemasa, who bring a contemporary interpretation to the tradition of Shino and Oribe. More information here.

November 15—December 6

Onishi Gallery, New York, is presenting Contemporary Japanese Ceramics as Statement, featuring works by Konno Tomoko, Suzuki Miki and Ohi Toshio Chozaemon XI. Their pieces are treated as artfully designed sculptures that make a statement and engage in meaningful dialogue with the interior of a home. More information here.

Until December 15

Ronin Gallery, New York, is presenting Scintillate: Sarah Brayer. Through moonbeams and waterfalls expressed with washi fibers and woodgrain, the Japan-based artist Sarah Brayer instills her prints and paperworks with a vitality that flows across the surface and glows from within. As she balances artistic control with the inherent energy of her materials, her works act as “a record of a moment,” a fleeting glimmer of light scintillating across layers of ink and paper. More information here.

Until December 15

Joan B Mirviss LTD, New York, is showing Playing with Pattern: Maeda Masahiro, bringing together major works from each stage of the artist’s career. Working steadily for over 50 years, Maeda is renowned for his skills in iro-e, an overglaze enamel technique that traces its roots to the vibrant Japanese polychrome porcelain ware of the 17th century. By combining his technical expertise with exuberant patterning, Maeda Masahiro is a modern master committed to enlivening tradition while occasionally imbuing it with wry humor. More information here.

Until January 7

Art Institute of Chicago is presenting Munakata Shikō and Buddhism in 20th-Century Japanese Prints. Munakata Shikō was foremost among 20th-century artists who drew upon Buddhist iconography for his subjects. Among this exhibition’s 25 prints are his two landmark series from the 1930s, Kegon-fu (1937) and Two Bodhisattvas and Ten Great Disciples of Buddha Sakyamuni (designed in 1939). In the latter, he rendered each large figure with thick black lines and an evocative gesture or expression. The series struck a chord globally, receiving prestigious awards at international biennials and becoming an iconic work of 20th-century printmaking. More information here.

Until January 21

Seattle Art Museum is presenting Hokusai: Inspiration and Influence, exploring the fascinating life and enduring legacy of this trailblazing master by pairing more than 100 of his woodblock prints, paintings and illustrated books alongside more than 200 works by his teachers, students, rivals and admirers.This new approach to presenting Hokusai’s work demonstrates the artist’s impact through centuries and around the globe, on artists including Yoshitomo Nara, Chiho Aoshima, and Helen Frankenthaler. The exhibition draws from the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. More information here.

October

Lectures and Events

October 9, 6–7:30 p.m. ET

The Burke Center at Columbia University, 807 Schermerhorn Hall, is presenting a lecture “Exhibiting Meiji Art and Culture: Curatorial Perspectives.” The art of the Meiji era (1868–1912) was the first to be collected as “contemporary Japanese art” in Europe and the United States. In this event, Takurō Tsunoda (curator at the Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Cultural History) and Chelsea Foxwell (co-curator, with Bradley Bailey, of the exhibition Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan at Asia Society New York) will reflect on recent curatorial interpretations of the art and culture of the Meiji era. Following individual presentations on Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan and the exhibition The Development of Visual Culture in the Meiji Era (近代日本の視覚開化) recently held at the Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Professors Tsunoda and Foxwell will discuss current trends in art historical research along with challenges, goals, and future aspirations for exhibiting Meiji art. In person only. RSVP: mo2486@columbia.edu.

October 12, 5 p.m. EDT

Joan B Mirviss LTD, New York, is presenting a Zoom webinar on the life and times of Araki Minol (1928–2010), an artist who lived between many worlds. Providing three points of view on the artist—university academic, museum curatorial and private collector— panelists Claudia Brown, Matthew Welch, David Frank and Kazukuni Sugiyama will examine Araki’s unique hybridity, both biographically and creatively, that laid the foundation for his vigorous paintings. Oct 12 at 5 pm EDT. More information and registration here.

October 21, 6–10 p.m. ET and October 21, 3–5 p.m. ET

Japanese Art Foundation, Chicago, is presenting two events: Kabocha Club: A Gathering of Supernatural Tales, October 21 (more information and sign up here) and Sashiko Japanese Embroidery Workshop, October 28 (more information and sign up here) at the Japanese Cultural Center, Chicago.

October 29 and October 30

A symposium, Collecting Katagami, hosted by MoDA, London and The Katagami Project, California, is taking place on October 29 at 10 a.m. London / 5 a.m. Chicago / 7 p.m. Tokyo, with European and Asian presentations, and on October 30 at 10 a.m. US Central time / 3 p.m. London / midnight Tokyo, with North American presentations. Participants can join via the LinkedIn Katagami Network. For more information, write to: stewards@katagamiproject.com.

Exhibitions

From October 3

Scholten Japanese Art, New York, is presenting an online collection of Meiji Period (1868-1912) woodblock prints in celebration of JASA’s exhibition, Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan, currently on view at the Asia Society Museum in New York. The selection includes works by Kiyochika, Yoshitoshi, Ginko, Kunichika, Chikanobu and Shuntei, among others, and concludes with a group of fifteen prints from the collaborative series promoting modern goods, Collections of Famous Products, The Pride of Tokyo, featuring complex mitate (parodies) enriched by layered meanings and cultural references which are revealed by unlocking the rebuses (picture puzzles) and wordplay. More information here.

From October 7–8

Egenolf Gallery is exhibiting at Rare Books LA, Union Station, 800 N. Alameda St., Los Angeles. More information here.

From October 13, 2023–January, 21, 2024

Japan Society, New York, is presenting Out of Bounds: Japanese Women Artists in Fluxus, the first-ever exhibition dedicated to the essential role of Japanese women in Fluxus—a transnational movement that began in the early 1960s and helped contemporary artists define new modes of artistic expression. More than 100 works will be on display, including those by pioneering artists Shigeko Kubota, Yoko Ono, Takako Saito and Mieko Shiomi. More information here.

From October 14, 2023–January 7, 2024

The traveling exhibition Washi Transformed: New Expressions in Japanese Paper is on view at the Mingei International Museum, San Diego. More information here.

Second rotation October 14, 2023–January 29, 2024; third rotation February 3–May 12, 2024

Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, is presenting a new rotation of prints in its current show, Imprinting in Their Time: Japanese Printmakers, 1912–2022. The exhibition examines how the role of a printmaker has transformed through international encounters, new sources of inspiration and artistic motivation. Drawn largely from the museum’s extensive collection of Japanese prints, the exhibition highlights a significant yet rarely seen part of its holdings, in addition to special loans from local private collections. It features masterworks by Kawase Hasui, Yoshida Hiroshi, Munakata Shikō, Saitō Kiyoshi, and new work by Hamanishi Katsunori and Morimura Ray. Each rotation consists of approximately 90 works on paper and proceeds thematically, beginning with works from the shin-hanga (new prints) movement, moving through works from the sōsaku-hanga (creative prints) movement, and ending with contemporary prints from the 1980s to the present day. More information here.

From October 21, 2023–January 7, 2024

Bowers Museum, Santa Ana (Orange County), CA, is presenting Beyond the Great Wave: Works by Hokusai from the British Museum. This exhibition includes a beautiful early example of The Great Wave and ventures beyond to feature a broad selection of works that Hokusai produced right up to his death at the age of 90. Visitors will be able to examine Hokusai’s personal beliefs through more than 100 paintings, drawings, woodblock prints and illustrated books that speak to his early career, rise to fame, interest in the natural and supernatural worlds, personal life, and search for immortality. More information here.

From October 26–November 1

Anastasia von Seibold Japanese Art and Katie Jones Japanese Art will present a joint exhibition of Japanese works of art from the 18th century to the present day during Asian Art in London. On view at Cromwell Place, London, will be 18th to 20th century ukiyo-e and Japanese paintings alongside works by contemporary Japanese artists working in a wide range of media, including ceramic, metalwork, textile, bamboo, lacquer and glass. More information here.

From October 26–November 22

Ippodo Gallery, New York, is presenting Masaaki Miyasako: Living Dreams, the artist’s first solo exhibition in the U.S. It is curated around the concept of “Saku Zen,” referring to the ephemeral moments in life between any two events. The exhibition is composed of nineteen paintings, calligraphy and sculptures. More information here.

Until October 27

Sebastian Izzard LLC Asian Art, New York, is exhibiting Japanese Paintings and Prints: 1910‒1935, exploring the world of Japanese prints in the first half of the twentieth century, an era of energy, new influences, and styles, and a refocusing of the Japanese print world by catering to new tastes. Works on display include those by Yoshida Hiroshi (1876–1950), Hashiguchi Goyō (1880?–1921), Itō Shinsui (1898‒1972), Kawase Hasui (1883‒1957), Takahashi Hiroaki (1871–1945), Kobayakawa Kiyoshi (1899–1948) and Torii Kotondo (1900–1976). More information here.

Until October 27

Joan B Mirviss LTD, New York, is presenting works by Kawamoto Gorō (1919–1986) in his first solo exhibition outside Japan. One of the most innovative ceramic artists of Japan, Kawamoto is still to this day not as well-known as his pioneering twentieth-century Japanese contemporaries. But as the subject of a major retrospective at Musée Tomo in Tokyo just this year, he has now garnered critical praise for his novel and playful works decades after his passing. His diverse output ranged from stoneware vessels and teabowls decorated with abstracted bird motifs to torn standing totemic forms and masks to painterly polychrome decorated sculpted vessels in porcelain. Unifying this astounding oeuvre is his consistently fresh and exceedingly modern expression of ancient forms and mythical figures. More information here.

From October 28, 2023–March 10, 2024

National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, DC, is presenting Staging the Supernatural: Ghosts and the Theater in Japanese Prints. The exhibition explores the roles that ghosts and spirits played in the retelling of Japanese legends and contemporary events in Noh and kabuki, bringing together a collection of vibrant, colorful woodblock prints and illustrated books that depict the specters haunting these two theatrical traditions. More information here.

Through October 30

Carole Davenport Japanese Art, New York, is presenting The Beauty of Mingei, Art of the People, featuring objects created for everyday use, functionality, and mostly by unknown artisans. These objects reveal the artistic sensibility inherent in the Japanese psyche and how they lavished everyday objects with artful designs. More information here.

Until March 3, 2024

Japan Museum SieboldHuis, Leiden, the Netherlands, is showing Japan on a Glass Plate: 19th-Century Photographs from the Kurokawa Collection, featuring more than 150 hand-colored photographs and several objects that together offer unique insight into late 19th-century Japan. The Kurokawa Collection, known for its comprehensiveness, is one of the most important and extensive private collections of Meiji photography in the world. The works by famous photographers such as Felice Beato, Baron Raimund von Stillfried, Adolfo Farsari, Kusakabe Kimbei and Ueno Hikoma are in exceptionally good condition and have never been shown before. More information here.

September

Lectures and Events

September 11, 12 p.m. ET

JASA is presenting a Zoom webinar on The Montgomery Collection, widely regarded as the largest and finest collection of mingei (Japanese folk art) outside Japan. Selections from the collection are currently on view at the Dallas-based Crow Museum of Asian Art. Luigi Zeni, guest curator at the Crow Museum, will discuss the collection with Switzerland-based collector Jeffrey Montgomery, who has spent over 40 years acquiring approximately 1,100 works of mingei in various media. JASA board member and noted mingei collector David Kahn will moderate the discussion. Registration in advance is required here.

September 12 and September 19

University of Zurich, Switzerland, is hosting a two-day international symposium, “Art of the Japanese Copy,” featuring presentations by leading and emerging scholars from Japan, Austria and Switzerland. The symposium is an attempt to widen the discussion of copying, especially in regard to Japan during the 19th century. Presenters will examine three specific areas: copying of historical relics, copying of Japanese architecture, and copying of the human form in the ikiningyō tradition. Symposium program is available here. It will take place in person in Zurich on September 19, with a keynote presentation one week earlier, on September 12. Please note that some of the talks will be in Japanese; English translations will be provided. For questions regarding the symposium, contact Professor Dr. Hans Bjarne Thomsen at: thomsen@khist.uzh.ch

September 21

Japan Society, New York, and Japan Institute, Portland, Oregon, are jointly holding Peace Symposium New York 2023, the United Nations’ International Day of Peace, in New York. Japan Institute is the global cultural initiative of Portland Japanese Garden, created to facilitate and inspire conversations about peace, art, and the human relationship with the natural world. The Peace Symposia series features leaders from numerous cultural, intellectual, and diplomatic fields, coming together to discuss the evolving role of art, cultural institutions and public spaces as the platform for peacebuilding and community engagement. Ultimately, Japan Institute will hold six Peace Symposia on six continents—the first was in Tokyo and the second in London. New York will be the third in this series, followed by South Africa later this year. More information and registration here.

October 3

JASA’s 50^th anniversary exhibition, Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan, opens on October 3 at Asia Society Museum in New York, before traveling to the Smart Museum at the University of Chicago and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in 2024. Per an earlier email sent to all members, JASA members are invited to special opening activities on Oct ober 3, including a reception, a lecture by Rosina Buckland, Curator of Japanese art at the British Museum, and guided tours of the exhibition. Registration in advance is required by sending an email to membership@asiasociety.org.

Exhibitions

September 12–28

Dai Ichi Arts Ltd, New York, is showing Object, Vessel: Ikebana Sogetsu, Yasuhara Kimei, and the Art of Japanese Ceramics, the first exhibition in the West to present a significant collection of Yasuhara Kimei’s ceramic works. More information here.

September 14–22

Egenolf Gallery Japanese Prints is presenting an online exhibition for Sep 2023 Asia Week New York Four Seasons of Beauty, featuring 19^th and 20^th century landscape prints by Hokusai, Hiroshige and Hasui, the most renowned landscape specialists of their time. More information here.

From September 14

Joan B Mirviss LTD, New York, is presenting Tempest: New Sculpture by Fujikasa Satoko, marking the artist’s third solo outing in New York and her first since 2019. Fujikasa’s powerful sculptures explore the wilder side of nature and reveal a new dimension to her dynamic artistry. More information here.

September 14–22

Onishi Gallery, New York, is presenting an online exhibition, Onko Chishin, featuring work by Murose Kazumi, Japan’s leading master of lacquer art, named a “Living National Treasure” in 2008. More information here.

September 14–22

Scholten Japanese Art, New York, is showing Kazuma/Koizumi: Chasing Modernity, juxtaposing the work of two modern printmakers, Oda Kazuma (1881–1956), and Kishio Koizumi (1893–1945). Both artists were prominent members of the sosaku hanga (creative print) movement who shared an interest in depicting daily life in views of modern Japan, particularly the restoration and transformation of Tokyo following the 1923 earthquake. Appointments appreciated. More information here.

September 14–22

Thomsen Gallery, New York, is showing Post War and Contemporary Japanese Art. (Closed Sunday, September 17.) More information here.

September 14–October 4

Ippodo Gallery, New York, is presenting Skin and Body: Crazed Vessels By Kodia Ujiie, the artist’s first solo exhibition in New York. Ujiie has developed a personalized approach to the traditional technique kannyu: intentionally allowing cracks to form across the surfaces, he saturates the grooves with brightly colored lacquer until the skin is made whole once more. More information here.

September 14–October 20

Ronin Gallery, New York, is showing Yoshitoshi’s One Hundred Views of the Moon (Tsuki Hyakushi, 1885–1892). Regarded as one of the great masterpieces of ukiyo-e, this woodblock print series offers not only creative, compositional, and technical brilliance, but also unfettered passion, pulling together poetry, folklore, literature, and history beneath the light of the moon. This shimmering ode to centuries of Japanese culture reinvigorated the tales of the past for a nation shaping its future. The exhibition features all 100 designs and is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog. More information here.

Until October 21

Seizan Gallery, New York, is presenting three exhibitions featuring ceramic works and paintings by contemporary artists: Ruiji Aiba Dancing With An Octopus, Astrid Köppe Pretty Shiny Stuff, and Asako Tabata Waste Of A Cushion. More information here.

Until February 18, 2024; until March 10, 2024

Minneapolis Institute of Art is presenting Chaos: Ken Matsubara’s Buddhist Masterwork featuring two paintings, 600 years apart: the 14th century Taima Mandala and the 20th century Chaos by Ken Matsubara (b. 1948). Despite the chronological distance between them, these two pieces are connected by Buddhist threads. In this installation, accompanied by the echoes of singing bowls, the visitor acts as the bridge between Matsubara’s depiction of human struggle and the Taima Mandala’s immaculate Pure Land. Until March 10, 2024. More information here. Also showing at the museum is The Root Collection: Living with Japanese Ceramics, presenting a selection of tea bowls and other tea ware, standing and hanging vases, as well as sculpture, collected and donated to the museum by Tamara and Michael Root. Until February 18, 2024. More information here.

Until March 10, 2024

Cleveland Museum of Art is presenting Colors of Kyoto: The Seifū Yohei Ceramic Studio, showcasing works in porcelain and stoneware made by the Kyoto-based studio of Seifū Yohei from the late 19th- to the mid-20th century. The exhibition is the first in North America to comprehensively examine the studio’s output from the time of its founder, Seifū Yohei I (1801–1861), through that of its fourth-generation head, Seifū Yohei IV (1871–1951). The show and its catalog also use the collection as a lens through which to analyze aspects of the modernization of Japan and to consider the history of international trade. More information here.

The catalog for the exhibition The Lotus Moon: Art and Poetry of the Buddhist Nun Ōtagaki Rengetsu, which took place at the Royal Monastery of St. Mary of Pedralbes in Barcelona, Spain, in 2021-2022, is now available. Written by scholar John Stevens, who curated the exhibition, the catalog is available from publisher Floating World Editions (www. floatingworldeditions.com).

July

Lectures and Events

July 14 and July 25

JASA is hosting two special tours in July as part of its ongoing commitment to providing members with unique curator-led events that offer fascinating insight into Japanese art exhibitions and collections. With our groundbreaking exhibition, Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan, set to open on October 3 at Asia Society Museum in New York, our first July event is a special tour of two Boston museums that started collecting Japanese art in the Meiji era. On July 14, members will be given a special guided tour of the Japanese collection at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, followed by a tour of the Museum of Fine Art’s blockbuster exhibition, Hokusai: Inspiration and Influence, led by Japanese Art Curator Sarah Thompson. Space is limited on this trip and registration is required by July 12. Sign up here.

On July 25 at 3 p.m., JASA members will have the opportunity to tour the Asia Society Museum exhibition Buddha, Sage of the Shakya Clan with curator Laura Weinstein. The exhibition captures the mythology of Buddha’s life and the “Eight Great Events” that transformed it. Many of the masterworks were collected by John D. Rockefeller III and Blanchette Rockefeller and donated to Asia Society Museum in 1979. Sign up here.

The Museum of Domestic Art and Architecture in London is collaborating with the Katagami Project to organize a symposium “Collecting Katagami” at Middlesex University, London, in October 2023. Interested collectors and others are invited to contact the organizers to learn more about the symposium and their potential involvement in it by sending an email to stewards@katagamiproject.com.

Japan Foundation Los Angeles has launched a new portal site “Doors to Arts of Japan” compiling many videos with concise explanations regarding various forms of Japanese art and culture, such as painting, ceramics, dolls, sushi and manga. The Foundation is streaming the videos every Wednesday at 12:30 p.m PT on their Facebook, Instagram and YouTube channels, along with an introduction to each video by L.A.-based Asian art historian and JASA member Meher McArthur. More information here.

Exhibitions

July 11–August 18

Ronin Gallery, New York, is presenting Hayaki Nishigaki: A Monster of Our Own Making, featuring works by the winner of the 5th annual Ronin Globus OnBeat Artist-in-Residence Program. At the brush of Nishigaki, the iconic monster Godzilla becomes a contemporary motif explored across traditional painting techniques. From the aftermath of WWII to the environmental crises of today, the King of Monsters functions as a vessel for societal woes and national consciousness throughout Nishigaki’s work. More information here.

July 15–October 15

Art Institute of Chicago is showing Ghosts and Demons in Japanese Prints, all from the museum’s Clarence Buckingham collection. Supernatural beings have always been common features in Japanese legends, prints and Kabuki theater. The prints on view in this exhibition capture common Japanese folk tales as well as their Kabuki adaptations from the early 18th century to the last years of the 19th century, offering distinct insight into the nature of these beloved stories and characters. More information here.

July 25, 2023–January 7, 2024

Japan House Los Angeles is presenting Pokémon x Kogei: Playful Encounters of Pokémon and Japanese Craft, featuring over 70 eye-opening works created by 20 craft artists, from emerging artists to living national treasures, who bring the Pokémon brand to life using their skills in metalwork, lacquer, textile and more. Pokémon is one of Japan’s most beloved pop culture icons, reaching all corners of the globe through video games, animation, the Pokémon Trading Card Game and more. More information here.

Opening late summer 2023

Philadelphia Museum of Art is presenting Collecting Japanese Art in Philadelphia. The 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia was the first world’s fair held in the United States and also the beginning of Japanese art collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Over nearly 150 years that followed, the museum’s Japanese art collection expanded and diversified. Drawn from the works highlighted in the new publication Art of Japan, the selections in this installation—ranging from ceramics, metalwork, painting and lacquerware to contemporary bamboo art—showcase the breadth of Japanese art, and also spotlight the people—collectors, donors, curators—who were instrumental in shaping the collection. More information here.

Until July 29

Seizan Gallery, New York, is presenting its summer group show featuring works of Mizuho Fukumuro, Eri Iwasaki, Kenta Takahashi and Junya Tsubota, all contemporary Japanese artists who have trained in the “Nihonga” painting tradition. More information here. The gallery is also showing seven new paintings by Yasushi Ikejiri, the newest addition to the artist’s on-going “candy wrapper” series. More information here.

Until July 31

Ippodo Gallery, New York, is extending its show Magic of the Tea Bowl, Volume III, featuring works by 18 talented artists with a curation of more than 100 tea bowls. More information here.

Until August 11

Paired with its exhibition this summer of celadon-glazed ceramics, Joan B Mirviss LTD, New York, is showcasing a suite of paintings by Araki Minol (1928–2010) never before shown in public. More information here.

Until December 10

Cleveland Museum of Art is presenting Animals in Japanese Art, featuring images of animals made in Japan for a variety of purposes over the past 1,500 years and exploring the often overlapping decorative, functional, and symbolic roles they have served.

August 19, 2023—March 10, 2024

The museum is also presenting Colors of Kyoto: The Seifū Yohei Ceramic Studio showcasing works in porcelain and stoneware made by the Kyoto-based studio of Seifū Yohei from the late 19th to the early 20th century. More information here

June

Lectures and Events

June 13, 7-8 p.m. PDT

Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is hosting an Art & Conversation session with independent curator and scholar Richard Speer and University of California, Irvine, professor Bert Winther-Tamaki to discuss the richness and complexity of cross-cultural expression in post-war Japanese art. Presented in conjunction with the current exhibition Sam Francis and Japan: Emptiness Overflowing, LACMA curators Hollis Goodall and Leslie Jones moderate the conversation. In-person only. More information and sign up here.

June 15 and June 27

JASA is hosting two tours: On June 15, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Asian art curator Xiaojin Wu will lead a tour of Ink and Brush: The Beauty and Spirit of Japanese Calligraphy, an exhibition of 25 examples from the museum’s collection; and Monique D’Almeida will discuss the new exhibition Scandal & Virtue: Staging Kabuki in Osaka Prints. On June 27, we’ll meet at the Poster House, one of New York City’s newest museums, for a tour of Made In Japan: Japanese Poster Art, led by the exhibition’s co-curator Erin Schoneveld. Sign up in advance required, here.

June 21, 6:30-8 p.m. EDT

JASA members are invited to attend the inaugural meeting of the Japanese Literature Salon, to discuss the short stories and long shadow of Ryunosuke Akutagawa, at Japan Society, New York, or via Zoom. For more information and to sign up, write to Joyce Shapiro at Joycejapanlit@gmail.com.

June 22, 5 p.m .EDT

Joan B Mirviss LTD, New York, is hosting a Zoom gallery talk “Unexpected Dialogues: Japanese Ceramics in New Contexts.” Presenters include curators Heather Lemonedes of the Cleveland Museum of Art and Mari Hanazato of the Ibaraki Ceramic Art Museum as well as two collectors. Moderated by Joan Mirviss. More information and sign up here.

Exhibitions

June 8–July 13

Ippodo Gallery, New York, is showing Magic of the Tea Bowl, Volume III, featuring works by 18 talented artists with a curation of more than 100 tea bowls. More information here.

June 20–early August

Joan B Mirviss LTD, New York, is presenting Warm to the Touch: Cool and Refreshing Celadon, showcasing the captivating qualities of celadon in a range of forms and styles by a dozen modern and contemporary Japanese ceramic artists from different backgrounds and traditions. More information here.

June 24, 2023–May 12, 2024

Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is presenting Imprinting in Their Time: Japanese Printmakers, 1912–2022, a survey of Japanese prints throughout the 20th century up to present day. The exhibition examines how the role of a printmaker has transformed through international encounters, new sources of inspiration, and artistic motivation. Drawn largely from the museum’s extensive collection of Japanese prints, the exhibition highlights a significant yet rarely seen part of its holdings, in addition to special loans from local private collections. More information here.

Until July 5

Dai Ichi Arts, Ltd, New York, is showing Contemporary Chadogu: The Art of Contemporary Tea Ceramics, presenting a range of contemporary Japanese ceramic tea utensils in a new light, for both life-long and new collectors. More information here.

May

Lectures and Events

May 4, 6–7 p.m. EDT

Mary Griggs Burke Center for Japanese Art, Columbia University, is hosting a lecture by Professor Samuel C. Morse, Amherst College, on “Nara Sculptors at the End of the 13th Century,” 807 Schermerhorn Hall at Columbia University. RSVP: mo2486@columbia.edu

May 9, 5 p.m. EDT

JASA is presenting a live Zoom webinar on “The Material Culture of Noh” with Princeton University Professor Thomas Hare. Registration required in advance. Sign up here.

Exhibitions

May 11–June 23

Ronin Gallery, New York, is presenting Through a Lens: Michael Magers, featuring works by photographer Michael Magers during his decade of travels throughout Japan. In this selection of 24 black-and-white photographs, Magers composes poetry of light and shadow, of solitary subjects in richly textured settings. He stills the rush of daily life to capture the story of a moment, unfolding beneath the neon glow on a street of shuttered storefronts or within the private workshop of a master craftsman. More information here.

May 12-25

Carole Davenport Japanese Art, New York, is presenting Ted Kurahara: 70 Years of Abstraction. In his 98th year, Ted Kurahara is still creating his iconic canvases of vibrant color-field squares, which became his signature style decades ago. The Nippon Club exhibition focuses on works completed since 2000, and demonstrates his recent re-awakening with Cadmium Red Medium and Deep. Nippon Club Gallery, 145 W. 57th St., New York. Closed Sunday. More information here.

Until May 17

Ippodo Gallery, New York, is presenting Panta Rhei: Everything Flows, including works by five artists on Japanese washi paper. The artists are KAKU, Mami Kato, Yasue Maetake, Ryuji Taira and Kaori Teraoka. The exhibition unveils new perspectives in Japanese paper, transforming the medium into voluminously crafted planes. More information here.

Until May 26

Thomsen Gallery, New York, has extended its show, Japanese Art 1910-1940, featuring folding screens, hanging scrolls, bamboo baskets and gold lacquer boxes. More information here.

Until May 31

Onishi Gallery, New York, is presenting The Four Elements in Japanese Arts: Earth, Air, Fire and Water, showcasing the technical mastery of contemporary Japanese ceramic artists. The exhibition includes new works by one of the leading female ceramicists in Japan, Konno Tomoko (b. 1967), whose works are spurred out of a creative spirit from her time in Bali, while interacting with the natural environment. More information here.

Until June 16

Joan B Mirviss LTD, New York, is presenting Coming to Life: Vernal Expressions in Clay, featuring works by Hattori Makiko and Akashi Ryotaro, two Japanese ceramic artists, still early in their careers, who consider the timely themes of birth and growth in all new works created for Joan B Mirviss LTD over the past three years. More information here.

Until June 24

Seizan Gallery, New York, is presenting Unconscious River, a solo exhibition of works by Japanese painter Toshiyuki Kajioka. Kajioka has single-mindedly painted the surface of flowing water for the past twenty years. Until Jun 10. The gallery is also presenting an exhibition juxtaposing two contrasting bodies of work. Targets by Alexa Hoyer is an ongoing series of photographs featuring homemade gun targets in the Nevada desert. Oharae is a set of intensely textured abstract works by Japanese artist Moeko Maeda. More information here.

Until July 3 and July 24

Philadelphia Museum of Art has extended its exhibition Ink and Brush: The Beauty and Spirit of Japanese Calligraphy through July 3. More information here. The museum is also presenting Scandal & Virtue: Staging Kabuki in Osaka Prints until July 24. More information here.

Until March 3, 2024

National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, DC, is presenting A Journey of Taste: Freer and Japanese Scroll Mounting. As part of the National Museum of Asian Art’s centennial celebrations, this exhibition—a collaboration between the curatorial and conservation departments—will explore a range of developments in the evolving tradition of mounting artwork by highlighting the work of several generations of mounter-conservators at the museum. More information here.

April

Lectures and Events

April 6, 6 p.m. EDT

Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia University, New York, is presenting a lecture on “The Archeology of Urban Life in Late Medieval Japan” by Prof. Morgan Pitelka of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Kent Hall, Room 403, Columbia University (1140 Amsterdam Ave.) Preregistration is required, at www.keenecenter.org or by clicking here.

Friday, April 14

JASA is hosting two in-person events. At the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Japanese Art Curator and JASA member Hollis Goodall will take JASA members through two remarkable exhibitions illustrating Japanese art in dialogue with other cultures: The Five Directions: Lacquer Through East Asia and Sam Francis and Japan: Emptiness Overflowing (see below for info on exhibition). Group size is limited to 20 people and guests are permitted. Signup in advance is required. Click here to register. At Asia Society Museum in New York, JASA members will tour the fascinating exhibition Comparative Hell: Arts of Asian Underworlds with curator Adriana Proser. The deadline to sign up is April 10. Signup in advance is required. Group size is limited to 25 people and guests are permitted. Fee is $20 per person. Click here to register.

April 20

Joan B Mirviss LTD, New York, is presenting a Zoom gallery talk on “Zenga: Filling in the Lines of Japanese Zen Painting” featuring collectors, curators and scholars who have been directly involved in several current and recent Zenga exhibitions. More information and registration here.

April 20, 6 p.m. EDT

Mary Griggs Burke Center for Japanese Art, Columbia University in 807 Schermerhorn Hall, New York, will host a lecture by Julie Nelson Davis, Professor of Art History, University of Pennsylvania, on ”The Ghost in the Brush: Katsushika Ōi and the Hokusai Legacy.” Katsushika Ōi (ca. 1800–1860) was highly regarded in her lifetime; her famous father, ∫ (1760-1849), is reported to have said that her pictures of beautiful women were better than his own, while another contemporary artist commented that she had made a “reputation as a talented painter.” Yet only a handful of paintings and two illustrated books bear her signature. Given her reputation, why are there so few works remaining from the hand of Ōi? This talk reconsiders Ōi’s career, style, and legacy in the context of the Katsushika studio in her lifetime, arguing that her contributions have been vanished for the modern market, for reception abroad and for profit. RSVP at mo2486@columbia.edu.

April 26, 10:30 a.m.–12 p.m. PDT

Society for Asian Art (SAA), San Francisco, is presenting a Zoom member lecture by Joshua Frydman, Assistant Professor of Japanese at the University of Oklahoma, on his book The Japanese Myths: A Guide to Gods, Heroes and Spirits. A scholar on ancient Japan, Frydman’s interests include the development of writing systems in East Asia and the role of global cultural interactions in the development of pre-modern societies as viewed through literature and art. Fee: $15 per person for SAA members; $20 per person non-members. Advance registration fee must be received by SAA by April 19. More information and sign up here.

Exhibitions

April 5-28

Onishi Gallery, New York, is presenting The Four Elements in Japanese Arts: Earth, Air, Fire and Water, showcasing the technical mastery of contemporary Japanese ceramic artists. Featured artists draw upon the four central elements of earth, air, fire, and water in porcelain creations to communicate core themes and creative visions that ground Japanese art and life. More information here.

April 9 – July 16

LACMA is presenting Sam Francis and Japan: Emptiness Overflowing. In the work of American artist Sam Francis (1923–1994), Western and Eastern aesthetics engage in a profound intercultural dialogue. With over 60 works from LACMA’s collection and key lenders, this is the first exhibition to explore the artist’s work in relation to “ma” and other aspects of Japanese aesthetics. It will include works by Francis in the company of historic Japanese works to illustrate stylistic priorities shared by both. Also on view are works of contemporary Japanese artists (many associated with Gutai and Mono-Ha) whom Francis knew from his extensive time in Japan in the 1960s and ’70s. Apr 9 – Jul 16. More information here. See Lectures and Events section above for special JASA tour of the exhibition on April 14.

Until April 14

Scholten Japanese Art, New York, has extended its two Asia Week NY shows. Multiple Masters: Modern Prints & Paintings features a gathering of early modern works by masterful artists who produced paintings and prints. Ukiyo-e Woodblock Prints from the Shin Collection is a simultaneous exhibition of “golden age” figure prints of the late 18th-century and magnificent 19th-century landscapes. More information here.

Symposium, April 15 from 9 a.m–4 p.m.; exhibition, until June 11

Ackland Art Museum of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, is showing Lotus Moon and Nandina Staff: The Art of Otagaki Rengetsu and Nakahara Nantenbo. The exhibition includes around 50 works, the majority selected from a major recent gift from Ray Kass ’67 (’69 MFA) and Jerrie Pike, supplemented by works already in the Ackland and significant loans from an important private collection. The initial concept and early support for the exhibition came from the late Stephen Addiss, professor at the University of Richmond and a leading scholar of Japanese art, whose untimely death in April 2022 prevented him from developing the project or seeing it through to completion. More information here.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the Ackland Art Museum is hosting a one-day symposium, “Rengetsu and Nantenbō: Calligraphy and Context,” looking at the artists’ work from multiple perspectives, including Japanese Buddhism, the materiality and functions of the work, the role of literature, and the aesthetics of calligraphy. More information and registration (required in advance) here.

April 15, 2023–April 14, 2024

Crow Museum of Asian Art at the University of Texas at Dallas is presenting Japan, Form & Function: The Montgomery Collection, a landmark exhibition based on the renowned Mingei collection of Jeffrey Montgomery. More than 240 works will be presented, subdivided in themes and categories throughout the galleries. For the first time, the Crow Museum will dedicate the entire museum to one sole presentation over an extended period of time. More information here.

Exhibition, April 22 –July 23; lecture, April 23, 2–3 p.m.

Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is presenting Fukuda Kodōjin: Japan’s Great Poet and Landscape Artist. Fukuda Kodōjin (1865–1944) was one of a handful of scholar-artists who continued the tradition of Japanese literati painting (nanga) after 1900. Kodōjin’s painting style is characterized by bizarrely shaped mountain forms rendered in vivid color or monochromatic ink that often include a solitary scholar enjoying the expansive beauty of nature. Following his death, he slipped into obscurity, and today is better appreciated outside his native Japan. This is the first-ever exhibition of Kodōjin outside Japan. Mia is hosting a lecture “Unveiled: Fukuda Kodōjin: Japan’s Great Poet and Landscape Artist” on April 23. More information here.

April 22 –January 21, 2024

Mia is also showing Azechi Umetarō: Call of the Mountains, featuring prints given to the museum from the extensive collection of Sue Y. S. Kimm and Seymour Grufferman. More information here.

April 24–May 17

Dai Ichi Arts, Ltd., New York, is presenting Murata Gen: The Heart’s Eye, the first solo exhibition of the artist in New York. The show focuses on the emotional potential of Mingei craft expression through the works of Murata and his contemporaries in 20th century Japan. More information here.

Until May 20

Hammond Museum and Japanese Stroll Garden, North Salem, New York, is presenting three Japanese art-inspired exhibitions: Laura Cannamela: A Thousand Layers, The Elemental Clay: Ceramics by Helen Kunzman, and Asian Brush Artists Guild: Brush With Nature. More information here.

Until July 16

Museum of Fine Arts Boston is presenting Hokusai: Inspiration and Influence, exploring the artist’s impact both during his lifetime and beyond. More than 100 woodblock prints, paintings and illustrated books by Hokusai are on view alongside about 200 works by his teachers, students, rivals and admirers, creating juxtapositions that demonstrate his influence through time and space. More information here.

March

Lectures and Events

Sunday, March 19, 11 a.m.

The JASA Annual Meeting and Lecture will take place at Japan Society, 333 E. 47 St, New York. The event will also be live-streamed on Zoom. We are kicking off our 50th anniversary with a special conversation with Felice Fischer, curator emerita and her successor Xiaojin Wu, Luther W. Brady Curator of Japanese Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA), on highlights from the museum’s extensive Japanese collections. Felice and Xiaojin will each present five significant art works from the PMA collection and preview a “wish list” item in their discussion. The JASA Annual Meeting of members will follow the lecture. Registration in advance is required. If you have not already registered, please do so here.

Exhibitions

Until March 31

Dai Ichi Arts Ltd., New York, is presenting Intangible Heritage: The Art of Japan’s Living National Treasures, a group exhibition of masterful works by Japan’s Living National Treasures who work in the clay medium, from 1955 until now. More information here.

Until April 26

Seizan Gallery, New York, is presenting Air and the Void, the first solo exhibition of Japanese artist Yasuko Hasumura in the United States. Twelve new paintings will feature black and white abstract expression. She creates these works as “dialogues with materials” which masterfully capture light, darkness, and air. Hasumura’s paintings are ethereal yet substantial, tranquil yet powerful, muted yet roaring. More information here.

Until July 30

Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, PA, is presenting Mid Century to Manga: the Modern Japanese Print in America. Celebrated novelist James A. Michener was also a devotee of Japanese prints. Initially enthralled by exotic ukiyo-e, he learned about postwar Japanese graphic work and added those to his collection. Curator Julie Nelson Davis of the University of Pennsylvania has supplemented the museum’s prints with loans from outside sources. Until Jul 30. More information here.

March 10–April 28

Ronin Gallery, New York, is presenting Wanderlust: Hiroshige’s Journey Through the Sixty-Odd Provinces, featuring the artist’s complete masterpiece series Famous Places in the 60-odd Provinces (1853–1856). At Hiroshige’s hand, each of Japan’s 68 historical provinces come to life through a spectrum of natural wonders, regional specialties and popular pilgrimage destinations. More information here.

From March 16

Joan B. Mirviss Ltd., New York, is presenting two exhibitions in connection with Asia Week New York. Painted Clay: Wada Morihiro and Modern Ceramics of Japan features works by the revered artist Wada Morihiro (1944–2008), who created intricate surface patterning on exceptional creative functional forms. The exhibition sets the master’s oeuvre alongside the many Japanese artists who paint on clay, employing a wide range of techniques. These varied and dynamic works by Wada’s colleagues and successors will stand in conversation with those by Wada and provide a rich context for painting on Japanese ceramics. The gallery is also presenting postwar modern paintings from Gallery Shibunkaku of Kyoto and Tokyo. More information here.

March 16–18 and 20–24

Orientations Gallery, New York, and Oriental Treasure Box, San Diego, are presenting Celebrating Japanese Artworks and Artists: 10 Years with The Nippon Club, marking the tenth anniversary of this collaborative vetted exhibition. The show will focus on artworks with the Japanese concept of kinen (anniversary and commemoration), including objects depicting special celebratory events and ritualistic occasions. Artists who have won awards at international expositions and World’s Fairs from the Meiji, Taisho, and Showa Periods will be featured. Nippon Club Gallery, 145 W. 57 S., 7^th floor, New York.

March 16–24

Onishi Gallery, New York, is showing Heated Colors, Hammered Forms: Female Metal Artists of Japan, turning the spotlight on the contribution made by women to an aspect of kogei that was formerly a male preserve, closely associated with the world of the samurai. Although metals are especially hard to handle, shape, and decorate, the five featured artists—Ōsumi Yukie (Living National Treasure), Oshiyama Motoko, Hagino Noriko, Okamoto Yoshiko and Ōtsuki Masako— have each devoted a lifetime to the medium, using it to produce masterpieces that are every bit as expressive and beautiful as work in less obstinate materials such as clay or textile. More information here.

March 16–24

Thomsen Gallery, New York, is presenting Japanese Art 1910-1940, featuring folding screens and hanging scrolls from the Taisho era (1912–26) and early Showa era (1926–1989), a time of great change for Japan and its arts. Though most painters in this time typically remained focused on traditional themes, they often experimented with new materials and perspectives. Making trips abroad, many painters incorporated foreign elements from their travels into their work. The show also includes bamboo baskets and intricate gold lacquer boxes from the Taisho and Showa eras. More information here.

March 16–24

Scholten Japanese Art, New York, is presenting two shows in connection with Asia Week New York. Multiple Masters: Modern Prints & Paintings features a gathering of early modern works by masterful artists who produced paintings and prints. Ukiyo-e Woodblock Prints from the Shin Collection is a simultaneous exhibition of “golden age” figure prints of the late 18th-century and magnificent 19th-century landscapes. More information here.

March 16–April 20

Ippodo Gallery, New York, is showing Teramasa Ikeda: Iridescent Lacquer. A look back at one of the great wonders of the ancient world, Terumasa Ikeda’s hypermodern raden technique bridges past and future. Stone walls are transformed into inlaid mother-of-pearl, reimagining the Roman architecture in the context of lacquer. A conversation with the artist and catalog author Deborah Goldberg will take place on March 15 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. More information here.

March 20–May 21

Galerie Kommoss, Berlin, is presenting Painted Poems, Written Images: Poetic Art by Ōtagaki Rengetsu, bringing together paintings, calligraphy and ceramic works by Japan’s most famous 19th-century female artist. Known for her elegant handwriting, Rengetsu often reveals a sophisticated and complex relationship between materiality and meaning in her works. The exhibition can be viewed online March 20–May 21. More information here.

March 25–August 6

Minneapolis Institute of Art is presenting The Art of Literacy in Early Modern Japan. From the 1600s to the 1800s, the printing industry developed rapidly in Japan, making printed materials available to readers in urban and rural areas alike. Woodblock printing meant that books and prints could be mass produced, sold cheaply, and distributed widely. Readership grew steadily as temple schools taught basic reading and writing to people from the merchant and lower classes. This exhibition considers two forms of literacy, textual and visual, that enabled people to participate in a burgeoning public life. More information here.

March 25–September 10

National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, D.C., is presenting AY-O Happy Rainbow Hell. The artist’s multicolored screen-prints are a nostalgic trip back to the Pop art era of the 1960s and 1970s. This is the first exhibition dedicated to the artist (b.1931) at a museum in the United States. More information here.

March 31–June 3

University of Saint Joseph Museum, West Hartford, Connecticut, is showing Trailblazer: A Tribute to Toko Shinoda, featuring several of the prolific and long-lived artist’s lithographs and paintings from collections in the tristate area. More information here.

February

Lectures and Events

February 7, 5 p.m. EST

JASA is presenting a live Zoom webinar on Art Across Borders: Japanese Artists in the United States Before World War II. Drawing from her recent book, author and scholar Ramona Handel-Bajema will discuss the wave of Japanese artists who came to the United States during the first years of the 20th century. These artists contributed to the establishment of American Modernism, challenged notions of a Japanese aesthetic, and flourished in a nation that was at times hostile and other times welcoming. More information and sign-up here.

February 8, 3 p.m. EST

Ippodo Gallery, New York, is presenting a Risshun Tea Ceremony, with tea master Yoshitsugu Nagano, who will lecture on the use of ceremonial utensils, and features a selection of tea ware from the gallery’s collection that are suitable for the coming of spring. Fee. More information and sign-up here.

February 9, 6 p.m. EST

Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia University, New York, is presenting the 2022–2023 Soshitsu Sen XV Distinguished Lecture on Japanese Culture by novelist, filmmaker and Zen Buddhist priest Ruth Ozeki. This is an in-person event. More information and registration here.

February 17–19

There are still a few places available on the special 50^th anniversary JASA trip to Houston for the opening of None Whatsoever: Zen Paintings from the Gitter Yelen Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Included in the program are private tours and events, special lectures and other exciting activities. More information and sign-up here. (Deadline is February 10.)

February 23, 5 p.m. EST

Joan B Mirviss LTD, New York, is hosting a Zoom panel discussion on Shigaraki: Contemporary Artists on an Ancient Tradition. Known for its distinctive clay and beautiful natural ash glazes, Shigaraki ware is one of Japan’s celebrated ceramic traditions. Curator Natsu Oyobe is joined by two featured artists who will offer key insights into their process of working in this fascinating medium. More information and registration here.

February 25, 9 a.m.–4 p.m. MST

Denver Art Museum is hosting the one-day symposium Her Brush: New Approaches to Gender and Agency in Japanese Art in conjunction with its exhibition Her Brush: Japanese Women Artists from the Fong-Johnstone Collection The international symposium brings together foremost scholars and specialists from various.disciplines in order to reflect on the state of the field—past, present and future—reconsidering the art historical canon through the lens of gender and agency. The symposium is free, but advanced registration is required. It will be conducted in person as well as virtually via Zoom. More information here .

Exhibitions

February 4–March 4

Duke Gallery at the Community Arts Center in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, will host the Philadelphia Tea Bowl Exhibition, featuring works by over 60 ceramic artists from Japan, France, New Zealand, Ireland, Taiwan and the United States. Over 200 pieces will be on view. A temporary tea room has been constructed in the center of the gallery, with various tea-related events planned. More information here.

February 4–5; February 11–12

Several Japanese print dealers will be exhibiting at the Bay Area Fine Print Fair in Berkeley, California, February 4–5 and at the Los Angeles Fine Print Fair in Pasadena, California, February 11–12, including Impressions advertisers Egenolf Gallery and The Tolman Collection of New York. Also exhibiting is the Verne Collection.

February 18, 2023—January 28, 2024

National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, DC, is presenting Rinpa Screens, featuring a selection of screens painted in the Rinpa style, a movement known for stylized forms in bright colors that spanned the 17th to the 19th centuries. A complementary display of ceramics demonstrates the aesthetic exchange facilitated by trade between Japan and China and interrogates what makes a work of art Japanese. More information here.

February 18—May 21

Descanso Gardens, La Canada, California, is presenting Shiki: The Four Seasons in Japanese Art, exploring the use of poetic seasonal motifs to embellish kimonos and accessories, folding screens, woodblock prints, ceramics and cloisonne enamels. The artworks date from the 18th century to the present day and are from the collection of Scripps College in Claremont, California. More information here.

Until February 20

Kimono Style at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, will close on February 20 after a long and successful run, with more than 350,000 people visiting the exhibition. More information here.

Until February 28

Dai Ichi Arts, Ltd, New York, is presenting Objects of Affection: Emergent and Established Ceramic Talents, sho wing the works of established masters (Hayashi Shotaro, Kitamura Junko, Miwa Ryosaku), alongside new works by emerging ceramic talents (Inayoshi Osamu, Shingu Sayaka, Oishi Sayaka, Komago Tetsutaro, Takada Naoki). More information here.

Until April 9

Cincinnati Art Museum is presenting Three Generations of Japanese Printmakers: The Yoshida Family Legacy. Visitors will experience a fascinating perspective on the evolution of Japanese printmaking through the works of three generations of the Yoshida family. More information here.

Until May 1

Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, is showing Color Trip: Yoshida Hodaka’s Modern Prints, the first ever solo exhibition in the United States by an influential pioneer of Japanese printmaking. Yoshida Hodaka (1926–1995). Born into the celebrated Yoshida family of print artists based in Tokyo, Hodaka was a leading figure of postwar Japanese printmaking known for his surreal, abstract, and arrestingly colorful prints. More information here.

Through May 2024

Center for Buddhist Studies, College of Humanities, University of Arizona, Tucson, has made new additions to its groundbreaking online exhibition, True Image: Celebrating the Legacy of Yinyuan Longi (Ingen Ryūki) and the Art of Ōbaku. Thirty new works have been added, nearly doubling the size of the exhibition, which celebrates the arts of the Ōbaku school of Zen on the occasion of the 350th death anniversary of its founder Yinyuan (Jp. Ingen). True Image is the largest assemblage of Ōbaku works presented by an institution in the West. Through May 2024. More information here