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Gustav Klimt (1862-1918)—a leading figure in Viennese art at the turn of the 20th century. Klimt’s paintings, known for their opulent decorative character and fin-de-siècle eroticism, still today enjoy widespread popularity. This exhibition marking the centennial of the artist’s death will feature more than 25 oil paintings by Klimt—the largest display ever to be realized in Japan. They will range from early naturalistic works and foremost “Golden Phase” painting, created after his forming the Viennese Secession, to sensual portraits of women and the landscapes he painted throughout his career.
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An exhibition displaying some 60 works of painting and sculpture from London’s Courtauld Gallery boasting one of the world’s great collections of Impressionist and Post-impressionist art. The exhibition will bring the artworks to life for viewers with explanation of the artist’s methods as revealed by the artist’s words, circumstances surrounding the works, and scientific investigation.
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Yasuko Iba (1967-), fascinated by the world manifesting between her eye and her motif, captures the fleeting scene by depicting alluring textures under the play of light. This exhibition will feature paintings created by Iba from photos taken at Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, as well as print works and video art.
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This project, operated in conjunction with Tokyo University of the Arts, is aimed at fostering an active, open art community with the Museum as a central stage. The project is led by art communicators (“Tobira”), who are given responsibility for growing a community.
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A program linking all 9 cultural facilities in Ueno Park to support children in their "museum debut." The program provides a "flat" learning environment where adults and children learn on an equal basis. Through experiences of seeing, listening, and speaking, children come to understand the fun and excitement of visiting an art museum.
Nagasawa Rosetsu
Monkey Gathering Persimmons
Hanging scroll, Color on silk, 104.0×37.7cm, Edo period (18th cencury), Private Collection
First public showing of a recently rediscovered work. The painting, published in an inventory catalogue in 1915, was rediscovered through research conducted for this exhibition. In a lively manner, it depicts a monkey cradling persimmons on a rock outcropping while a smaller monkey struggles to climb the rock face. Born in Sasayama, Kyoto to a low-ranking samurai family, Nagasawa Rosetsu studied with Maruyama Ōkyo. While other pupils faithfully copied the painting style that Ōkyo originated, Rosetsu opened his own territory through bold compositions and expressive, unrestrained brushwork, and created works rich in playful spirit. This is epitomized by the monkey’s comically vacuous expression in this work.
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Attributed to Iwasa Matabei
Defeating Demons
Eight-panel screen, Color on paper, 75.1×361.6cm, Edo period (17th cencury), Private Collection
A painting dealing with unprecedented subject matter, discovered during research for this exhibition. Judging from the brushwork, the painting was not executed by Matabei’s own hand, yet it is clearly a work by his studio. As a masterpiece showing the breadth of the Iwasa school, it is a work of importance. Matabei was the son of Araki Murashige, a lord in the service of Oda Nobunaga in the Sengoku (“Warring States”) period. He took his mother’s family name, Iwasa, after his family’s dissolution and eventually worked in Kyoto as a painter. He thereafter moved to Kitanoshō (Fukui prefecture), residing there for more than twenty years before dying in Edo. His artworks, which display sophisticated skills and a distinctive touch unseen in any other school, profoundly influenced painters after him.
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Kano Sansetsu
Plum Blossoms and Frolicking Birds (Important Cultural Property)
Four panels, Color, ink, and gold foil on paper, Each 184.0×94.0cm, Kan'ei 8 (1631), Tenkyū-in Temple, Kyoto
An aged plum tree’s trunk stretches in a great bend before extending far to the left with rigorous twists and turns. Red and white ivy clings to the gnarled trunk, on top of which a small bird perches. On its branches bloom a smattering of plum flowers. The work is a fusuma painting with a background covered in gold foil. Kano Sansetsu was born in Kyushu’s Hizen province (today’s Saga and Nagasaki prefectures). Apprenticed to Kano Sanraku around the age of 16, he thereafter became Sanraku’s son-in-law. Sansetsu is known for reinterpreting traditional subjects in powerful, dispassionate geometric compositions emphasizing the vertical and horizontal, and often using isosceles triangles. This work is symbolic of Sansetsu’s penetrating sense of form.
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Suzuki Kiitsu
One Hundred Birds, One Hundred Animals
Pair of hanging scrolls, Ink, color and gold pigment on silk, Each 138.0×70.7cm, Tenpo 14 (1843), The Catherine and Thomas Edson Collection, USA
One of Kiitsu’s foremost eccentric works, making its first return trip to Japan from the U.S. Depicted with exceedingly minute brushwork are numerous species of birds and beasts, a concept quite likely inspired by Jakuchu. Kiitsu studied under Sakai Hōitsu, a devotee of Ogata Kōrin who founded the Edo Rimpa school. Kiitsu was stoutly faithful to the Hōitsu style and often produced work under his master’s name. After Hōitsu’s death, he moved away from Hōitsu’s delicate elegance toward his own distinctive style, characterized by the bold use of artificial beauty in recomposed seasonal scenes of nature. The “eccentric” quality of Kiitsu’s work is rapidly being reappraised in recent years.
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Hakuin Ekaku
Bodhidharma (Daruma)
Hanging scroll, Color on paper, 192.0×112.0cm, Edo period (18th cencury), Manju-ji Temple, Oita
A painting, also known as “Dharma in Red,” considered a work of Hakuin’s late years. Hakuin in his eighties painted large works nearly two meters high employing innovative techniques that ignored conventional painting rules. These included not erasing his outline but instead drawing over it repeated times, as seen here. Hakuin was a Zen priest now regarded as the reviver of the Rinzai sect. Born in Hara-juku (present-day Numazu), he left home at the age of 15. As a practitioner of Zen, a sect advocating furyu-monji (no dependence on words and writings), he produced an astonishing number of Zen paintings and calligraphic works. Hakuin painted not to make art or money but rather as a means of conveying Buddhist teachings. His bold paintings teeming with humor set the stage for the arrival of the eccentric artists Shohaku, Rosetsu, and Jakuchu.
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Utagawa Kuniyoshi
Miyamoto Musashi Kills an Enormous Whale
Vertical ōban triptych, ca. Kōka 4 (1847), Private Collection
A bold composition depicting a great whale across three entire panels. Portrayed is the warrior Miyamoto Musashi, a master swordsman of the early Edo period who, legend has it, once pierced an enormous whale with his sword. Utagawa Kuniyoshi was born in Edo in Motoshirogane-cho (today’s Nihonbashi district). He won popular acclaim in the late Bunsei era (1820s) with his print series, One hundred and eight heroes of the popular Suikoden all told. While creating comic prints, prints of beautiful women, and Western-style paintings—with a modern feel distinguished by striking, innovative ideas—Kuniyoshi deftly eluded the Shogunate’s tight controls with charming, witty works of satire that found favor among common people. Kuniyoshi is considered the great master of the warrior print. His warrior scenes are positioned alongside the actor portraits of Kunisada and landscapes of Hiroshige.
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