What's Happening in Asian Art...
September 2, 2021
courtesy of Dai Ichi Arts, Ltd.
Terraform: Depictions of Earth in Japanese Ceramics from 1970
September 2 - 29, 2021
Dai Ichi Arts, Ltd.
The exhibition brings focus to Japanese ceramics that play upon the theme “Terraform.” Curated into two parts, the first group of works is bound by the theme “Memories of the Earth”, articulating the relationship between time, memory, earth, and clay. The sculptural forms from the ceramicists Suzuki Osamu 鈴木 藏 (b. 1934, LNT), Hiruma Kazuyo 昼馬 和代 (b. 1947) in this group respond to the wonders of the natural landscape in their work. The second group of works surrounds “Earthen Images,” tying together representations of the earth via image, pictorial forms, and surfacescape from the ceramic works of Murata Gen 村田 元 (1904-1988) and Wakao Toshisada 若尾 利貞 (b. 1933). From form to image, this exhibition enquires into the literal, affectual, sculptural and representational ways that clay may be used to envision the earth.
For more information, click here.
Moonlit Night
September 2 - October 5, 2021
Ippodo Gallery
Ken Matsubara, b. 1948, Crescent Moon, painting H 70 7/8 x W 46 1/8 in (180 x 117 cm.), courtesy of Ippodo Gallery
Autumn is one of the most poetic and enriching seasons in Japan. When the crop is cultivated, gorgeous foliages bloom, and many traditions have been passed down to celebrate and remember this season. When the moon is particularly stunning, the fall season is a time for festivals such as Choyo-no-sekku and Jogoya. In honor of the season, people drink sake with chrysanthemum petals and stroll through the Susuki gardens. Ippodo Gallery, New York, is pleased to welcome you to Moonlit Night, a selection of crafts that celebrates this Otsukimi season.
For more information, click here.
August 27, 2021
interior of the Leica Cafe at The Songtsam Lodge Lhasa
The award-winning luxury hotel group, Songtsam Hotels Resorts Tours in Tibet and Yunnan Provinces of China, and the world renowned Leica Akademie announced the official opening of the new Leica Cafe at the Songtsam Lodge Lhasa in Tibet. This initiative represents a continuation of the creative partnership between Songtsam and Leica.
Songtsam Founder & Chairman, Baima Duoji, originally a documentary filmmaker himself, said “One of the best ways to learn about Tibetan culture and explore the amazing natural beauty of Tibet and Yunnan, is through a camera lens. We are proud to continue our partnership with Leica to provide such a unique space for photographers, as well as non- photographers, to enjoy Leica Cafe’s unique collection of historic photographs as well as antique Leica cameras, and to provide photography buffs an opportunity to learn from Leica Akademie’s Master Photographers.”
The Leica Cafe is a photography enthusiast’s biggest dream and a great introduction and starting point to explore Tibet. This is the world’s first Leica collaboration space and boasts albums full of breathtaking photographs, vintage and antique Leica cameras, and unique historical images with remarkable stories behind them. For Leica and Songtsam this image space is unlike any other. The Leica Cafe is located in the foyer of the Songtsam Lodge Lhasa, a Tibetan-style building which integrates the architectural styles of palaces, temples, aristocratic residences and gardens. Every month the Cafe will hold photography lectures hosted by Leica’s master photographers. This will allow photography buffs a unique opportunity to learn from professionals how to apply these skills in the real world.
For more information about Songtsam visit www.songtsam.com/en/about
August 20, 2021
Women at the Well, Attributed to Mihr Chand, Mughal, Faizabad, Awadh, ca. 1765-70, Ink and opaque watercolor with gold on paper, 8 1⁄2 x 3 1/8 in. (20.5 x 13 cm.), courtesy of Kapoor Galleries
Provenance:
George Halla, Czech Republic consul to New South Wales, 1948.
Thence by descent.
Private collection, Sydney.
This masterful painting is an intriguing variant of a scene drawn from Indian literature and popularized in numerous 17th- and 18th-century Mughal paintings, that is, the chance encounter between a noble out hunting blackbuck and a comely village maiden at a well. Sparks of attraction fly as the man locks eyes with the woman pouring water to slake his thirst. The hunter, who is normally mounted and armed with a bow and arrow, pointedly relinquishes the physical advantage of his higher social station by having to reach up to the woman on the wellhead. In this iteration, however, that nobleman stands directly on the ground, holding only a long spear, and is accompanied by two unlikely fellow travelers: a mulla tendering a small covered bowl in his raised hand, and a tribal man with a shaved head, bare chest, and a grass lower garment. Surprisingly, it is the latter figure who reaches around the nobleman to extend a gourd-shaped cup to accept the gift of water, in effect displacing the customary romantic charge of village hospitality.
As usual, the woman pouring out refreshment is juxtaposed with two others hauling up water. Inventively, he assigns prominent positions in the composition to two other figures who bookend the panoply of village life: a naked, European-inspired toddler plunked down beside a basket and amusedly feeding a pair of ducks, and an old woman seated on a low stool passing time in spinning while she minds the infant. The exceptionally sensitive rendering of the dowager’s aged face and body is matched by the remarkably well-observed account of the utilitarian objects she holds – a spindle wound with cotton thread in her right hand and a wooden niddy-noddy supporting two skeins of thread in her left.
The only 18th-century artist skilled enough to begin to approximate the subtle sense of light and shadow, soft contours, muted palette, and stippled surface of the present painting is Mihr Chand (active ca. 1759-86), who worked for Nawab Shuja‘ al-Dawla and the Swiss adventurer Antoine Polier at Faizabad, the one-time capital of Awadh. Mihr Chand’s diverse artistic interests and high level of technical accomplishment allowed him to paint in a number of different manners, many of which feature hard-edged forms, pronounced shadows, and deep landscapes with low horizons. Others are conspicuously softer in style, as seen here in the faces of the nobleman and tribal figure.
By Dr. John Seyller
For more information, click here.
The recording of our webinar, The Color that Changed the World: The Impact of Blue in Asian Art is online
Utagawa Hiroshige (1797−1858), Kinkizan on Enoshima Island in Sagami Province (Sōshū Enoshima Kinkizan), Color woodblock print: aiban yoko-e uchiwa-e, 8⅞ x 11½ in. (22.5 x 29.2 cm), courtesy of Sebastian Izzard LLC Asian Art
The recording of our July 29th Zoom webinar, The Color that Changed the World: The Impact of Blue in Asian Art, a fascinating discussion by five expert panelists about this topic, is available to view on our website.
Click here to watch the webinar
August 16, 2021
Isohi Setsuko, Blooming Garden, 2019, madake bamboo, rattan, 5.75 x 12.50 x 6.50 in., courtesy of TAI Modern
TAI Modern Virtual Artist Talk: Isohi Setsuko
Wednesday, August 18
4:00pm PST / 5:00pm MST / 6:00pm CST / 7:00pm EST
Join Japanese bamboo artist Isohi Setsuko in her studio in Otawara-Shi for a discussion of works in her solo exhibition on view through August 28th. Viewers will have the opportunity to hear Isohi talk about her process and inspiration. Discussion and Q&A will follow.
To register now, https://events.eventzilla.net/e/isohi-setsuko-artist-talk-2138802655
August 13, 2021
Sora langi woman’s tube skirt (opened), Toraja, Sulawesi, Second half 19th Century, 72 x 56 in / 183 x 145 cm, courtesy of Thomas Murray.
Thomas Murray is taking part in Santa Fe Virtual Show from August 11-15 (Booth 31).
One of the piece in the show is this Sora langi. This is the name of a rectangular cloth that could be stitched up on the vertical seam and worn as a tube skirt, however many were kept as flat textiles and used ceremonially. These are relatively rare and comparatively early, with this most likely dating to the mid 19th Century. It is thought that they were woven in Galumpang to the taste of the ethnic groups living to the north in the Bada, Napu and other valleys. The colors are deep and the fine line progressions offer a very fine aesthetic.
Click here to view show website
August 12, 2021
Utagawa Hiroshige. Ferry Boats on the Fuji River in Suruga Province. Japanese. ca. 1832. Color woodblock print. 9 1/4 x 14 5/8 inches (23.495 x 37.1475 cm). Courtesy of Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
Origins: Collecting to Create the Nelson-Atkins
August 14 - March 6, 2022
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City opened its doors in 1933, but the collection was beginning to be built at a frantic pace three years prior. The new exhibition, Origins: Collecting to Create the Nelson-Atkins, explores the very beginnings of the collection as well as the people who made choices about what types of art to collect, the challenges and opportunities of acquiring art during the Great Depression, and the vast diversity of the museum’s first objects. There are more than 50 artworks in the exhibition, most of them acquired in the museum’s first 10 years.
The Nelson-Atkins is the legacy of two Kansas Citians: newspaper publisher William Rockhill Nelson and retired teacher Mary Atkins. Both left funds upon their deaths to create an art museum in Kansas City: Atkins’ money for a building, and Nelson’s to acquire art. The group who managed Nelson’s estate were responsible for assembling the future museum’s art collection.
“Laurence Sickman was one of the museum’s first advisors on Asian art,” said MacKenzie Mallon, Provenance Specialist at the Nelson-Atkins. “He acquired much of the museum’s foundational Chinese art collection, including some of its most important works, and became our first Curator of Asian Art in 1935.”
For more details, https://nelson-atkins.org/exhibitions/origins/
August 9, 2021
A Safavid cobalt-backed blue-and-white pottery dish, Persia, probably Kirman, mid-seventeenth century, 41.5 cm., 16 1/8 in. diameter; 8 cm., 3 1/8 in. height, courtesy of Oliver Forge & Brendan Lynch Ltd.
This dish is one of the works of Asian art featured in the exhibition, illustrating the beauty and range of material where the color blue is used as the primary decorative motif. Others include Chinese blue and white porcelain, contemporary Japanese ceramics and glass, Japanese prints and more.
The recording of our July 29th Zoom webinar, The Color that Changed the World: The Impact of Blue in Asian Art, a fascinating discussion by five expert panelists about this topic, will be available to view on our website very soon.
Object in Focus
Oribe Mukouzuke-Chaire, Momoyama - Early Edo Period, Early 17th century, Japan, 10cm High x 8.2cm Wide, courtesy of Zetterquist Galleries
This delightful little object illustrates the playful, innovative side of Oribe ceramics in the Japanese Tea Ceremony. Originally produced as a small basket-form food bowl in the early 17th century, it was later repurposed as a tea caddy, with the addition of the lacquered ebony lids. A combination of the russet glaze of the handle and the green glazed stripes on the body have melded during the firing and created ruby red drips at the bottom, a fortuitous gift from the kiln gods!
It is an early Narumi-type Oribe basket-shaped bowl of double lozenge form, with high-arched rust colored handle that spans the center. The underside is flat, and has a recessed circular underfoot with turned pin lines typical of Oribe pieces of this early period. The underside is unglazed, revealing a light brown clay body. The interior is buff and white, with soft transitions from flat bottom to vertical walls. The exterior sides are buff colored and decorated with stripes, hanging fruit and a single plum blossom outlined in black and highlighted in white and celadon green glaze. The celadons mix with the iron oxide to pool in rare ruby-red droplets near the foot. A flat wooden lid is custom fitted to the top, and splits in two at the handle, to allow use as a tea caddy for the Japanese tea ceremony. In a fitted lacquer box with silver inlay inscription, “Oribe”.
A double-lozenge form bowl with handle was excavated in the Nakano-cho site in Kyoto City, and is published in “Momoyama Tea Utensils: A New View”, Nezu Museum Tokyo 2018. pg. 60. Another larger example is published in “Turning Point; Oribe and the Arts of the 16th Century Japan”, Yale University Press 2003. pl. 64. See Nippon Touji Zenshu, Chuo Publishing 1976 pl. 16 for similar countersunk foot with pin lines on a similarly dated mukouzuke.
Provenance: Niiseki Kinya Collection, Yokohama Japan.
For more information, click here.
August 9, 2021
Shimaoka Tatsuzō, (1919-2007), Living National Treasure, H9" x Dia 8.5" x Lip 5" (H22.8 x Dia 21.5 x Lip Dia 12.7cm), Glazed stoneware with signed wood box, Ash Glazed Jar With Carved Design, Courtesy of Dai Ichi Arts, Ltd.
Shown above is one of the new arrivals at Dai Ichi Arts, Ltd. An original early creation of Shimaoka Tatsizo, LNT (1919-2007), this wheel thrown jar showcases a rich green ash glaze. The three waved pattern carved underneath the glaze adds to the dynamic character of the jar. A student of Hamada Shoji, Shimaoka Tatsuzo is nominated as Living National Treasure as well for his contribution to the Mingei movement in Mashiko ceramics.
For more information, click here.
July 28, 2021
Blue and white ceramic jar with phoenix design, 29.5 x 41cm , Yi Dynasty, 18th century, Published; “Blue and White Ceramics from Late Choson Dynasty” (Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka), Courtesy of Hiroshi Yanagi Oriental Art
July 17-August 17
Hiroshi Yanagi Oriental Art will launch a new online exhibition from 17th July in conjunction with Asia Week New York Summer 2021 Exhibition: Shades of Blue. The gallery usually introduce Japanese art at Asia Week New York in March, but they also handle Korean art. This is Hiroshi Yanagi Oriental Art's first exhibition of Korean works. Shown above is another blue and white piece in addition to their Dragon jar in Asia Week New York Summer 2021 Exhibition.
For more detail, https://www.h-yanagi.com/korea/
July 26, 2021
BLUE AND WHITE OHI CEREMONIAL VESSEL “SONSU 01", 2021, stoneware, h. 8 1/2 x w. 13 1/2 x d. 6 1/4 in., (21.6 x 34.4 x 15.8 cm)
From 3 July to 31 August, Onishi Gallery is pleased to present, The History of Ohi Ware: Ohi Chozaemon XI, featuring works from the 11th generation head of the iconic pottery ware family based in Kanazawa. Steeped in rich history and tradition, Chozaemon XI uses the generational knowledge passed on by his ancestors to elevate Ohi ware to a contemporary realm.
In 1666, Lord Maeda Tsunanori of the Maeda clan requested Senso Soshitsu, the fourth-generation Urasenke tea master to teach him the art of tea ceremony in the Kaga Domain. Ohi Chozaemon accompanied Senso on this assignment and started producing tea bowls with clay sourced from Ohi, an area outside of Kanazawa.
Ohi Chozaemon I was a direct descendant of the master potter Raku Chojiuro. Combining his learned Raku techniques with the tutelage of Senso Soshitsu, Ohi established a unique kiln of Raku tradition that was unprecedented in Kanawawa at the time.
Click here to explore the viewing room
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