The Price Collection JAKUCHU and The Age of Imagination

The Etsuko and Joe Price Collection based in California is world-renowned for its superb period paintings. The Exhibition entitled The Price Collection-Jakuchû and the Age of Imagination will be held at the National Museum (Ueno Park, Tokyo) from July 4th through August 27th, 2006. Some fifty years ago, Joe Price became fascinated by, and began to collect, paintings by the individualist artists of the , a field ignored by the art historians of the time. Mr. Price dubbed his collection and his foundation the Shin’enkan, borrowing one of the studio names of Itô Jakuchû (1716-1800), an individualist painter whose popularity has grown in recent years. Today the Price Collection centers around a superb group of works by Jakuchû, along with major works by Jakuchû ’s other Kansai region contemporaries such as Nagasawa Rosetsu (1754-1799) and Mori Sosen (1747-1821), along with Edo-based Rimpa artists Sakai Hôitsu (1761-1828) and Suzuki Kiitsu (1796-1858). The marvels of the collection include paintings by ukiyo-e artists and other painters who have recently attracted great attention from art lovers. This exhibition presents a selection of 101 works chosen jointly by Mr. Price and the staff from more than 600 works in the collection. The exhibition is divided into five sections, with the paintings arranged according to their artistic lineage. A special feature of this exhibition is its avoidance of glass cases in one of the galleries and use of careful lighting effects to create a display environment similar to an Edo period viewing experience. This unusual installation technique is based on Price’s viewing aesthetic, summed up in his phrase, “there were no glass cases in the Edo period.” This exhibition is Price’s gift to the Japanese audiences in the hope that viewers will find genuine enjoyment in the works and rediscover the wonders of Edo period paintings. It is our hope that the exhibition will be an unfettered enjoyment of truly unique and fascinating paintings. The main exhibition is joined by a companion exhibition, “Family Gallery: How do you see Japanese Arts from the Price Collection?” featuring eight works from the Price Collection in a special display with educational materials and explanatory texts.

Tokyo National Museum Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Inc. Who is Joe Price?

Joe Price is the person who early realized the intriguing nature of Itô Jakuchû, and whose first encounter with Jakuchû has become almost legendary. Price visited New York with his father’s friend Frank Lloyd Wright. Along with being a world-renowned architect, Wright was also a collector of Asian art, and Price and Wright visited an antique shop together. There Price was fascinated by an ink painting of grapes. He promptly abandoned his original intention to buy a sport car to celebrate his graduation, choosing to buy the grape painting instead, without even knowing the name of its painter. This took place in 1953, when Price was 24 years old, which marked the beginning of his collection of Edo period paintings. Without knowing the name or biography of the painters, Price simply collected those paintings that appealed to his eye and tastes. His unique aesthetics and specific tastes pervade the collection, and not surprisingly, that first Jakuchû grape painting was soon joined by many more Jakuchû masterpieces.

Fascinating Aspects of the Price Collection

When Edo period painting is mentioned, generally the Edo Kanô school,which was began by Kanô Tan’yû, the Rimpa school of Tawaraya Sôtatsu and Ogata Kôrin, and the ukiyo-e woodblock prints and literati paintings of the late Edo period come to mind. The Price Collection, however, has few works by these artists. The collection’s core is found in the works of Itô Jakuchû and his fellow late 18th century painters. The Rimpa works in the collection present a masterful array of works by post-Kôrin Edo Rimpa artists such as the late 18th century painter, Sakai Hôitsu. All of the paintings in the Price Collection reveal their artists’ unique views of natural imageies and highly individualistic methods of expression. These painters were long forgotten by post-World War art historians. Today they are once again attracting attention, as collectors and scholars follow Price’s lead in their rediscovery. The Price Collection is a powerful, intriguing collection that transforms existing views of Edo period paintings.

Message from Joe Price

The art in the Price Collection is free from the overtones of religion, intellectual nuances, or overbearing stylistic conventions. The works are so coupled with the heart of Nature that can they appeal to people from all walks of life – no scholarly explanations needed. This I hope explains how an engineer from Oklahoma could fall so in love with the images. I assembled the collection simply by appreciating the visual appeal of the paintings. The quality of beauty and precision of line were dominant, consistent aspects of the art. I collected the art uninhibited by outside teachings. My inability to speak or read Japanese certainly turned out to be an advantage, for it forced me to select the screens and scrolls based on the artists’ skills, not their seals or signatures. Even today, when I find a painting, I seldom ask who created it. When a work has great quality, a great artist produced it. Serious Edo artists received unparalleled and meticulous training, and with their skill, ability, and great pride in their accomplishments, their paintings should have some mark, some stroke beyond the capabilities of ordinary men. There is no need to look at a seal to know that a scroll was created by a master. What may have started out as an insignificant hobby has now turned into something much more meaningful to me. My collection gave my life a new purpose, for I wanted the public to experience for themselves the same immense joy that this art brings to me. I hope people can see my collection as much more than an accumulation of scrolls and screens. It is like an album of images to be compared side by side to not just look at the different works, but to learn from them as well. I want everyone to examine the differences between the great masters, their gifted students, and those that, in the process of learning, attempted to copy their works. The Etsuko and Joe Price Collection is not intended to be seen as just a collection – it hopefully should be an experience. Exhibition Title: The Price Collection - JAKUCHU and The Age of Imagination

Period: July 4 – August 27, 2006

Venue: Heiseikan, Tokyo National Museum 13-9 Ueno Park, Taito-ku, Tokyo 110-8712

Time: 9:30 – 17:00 Saturdays, Sundays, Holidays until 18:00, Fridays until 20:00 (last entry 30 minutes before closing) Closed on Monday (except for Monday, July 17 and August 14) and July 18 (Tuesday)

Organizers: Tokyo National Museum / Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Inc.

Special Collaboration: SHIN’ENKAN FOUNDATION

Endorsement: Embassy of the United States in Japan Japan America Society of Southern California

Sponsorship: NEC / NIPPONKOA INSURANCE

Collaboration: Los Angels County Museum of Art / Japan Airlines / First Design System

Information: Hello Dial 03-5777-8600 (in Japanese only)

Exhibition Official Website: http://www.jakuchu.jp/ Tokyo National Museum Website: http://www.tnm.jp/

Admissions: Adults ¥1300(¥1100/¥1000) Univ. and High School students ¥900(¥700/¥600) ・Prices shown in ( ) indicate Advance / Group (more than 20 persons) tickets. ・Elementary and junior high school students are admitted free. ・Ticket prices include admission to regular exhibitions. ・Persons with physical or mental disabilities are allowed free entry with one accompanying guest. ・Advance Tickets will be on sale from May 14 at e-Ticket Pia, Lawson Ticket, CN Playguide, JR East Reservation Ticket Office (Midori-no-madoguchi) and View Plaza at major stations, Circle–K, Sankus, JTB, and E-Plus.

Educational Program: Family Gallery: How do you see Japanese Arts from the Price Collection?” Period: July 4 – August 27, 2006 Location: Tokyo National Museum, Heiseikan Organizer: Tokyo National Museum For inquiries: Jakuchu exhibition Publicity Office(in Kyodo Pubulic Relations Co., Ltd.) Contact: Mr. Murata, Mr. Sakurai, Ms. Mitsui Dowa Bldg. Ginza 7-2-22, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-8158 TEL: 03-3575-9823 FAX: 03-3574-0316 E-mail: [email protected] Outline of the Exhibition and Highlights of Each Section This exhibition features 101 paintings selected by the Tokyo National Museum curators and Joe Price from the approximately 600 works in the Price Collection. The exhibition is divided into five sections based on the artistic lineages of the painters whose works are displayed.

Chapter 1. Orthodox Painting During the Edo period, a painting school system that engaged in traditional style paintings was formed based on either blood relationships or teacher-student relationships between painters. The Kanô School and Tosa School painters were the main examples of such painting school system. Within the rigid organization of the social order by the Tokugawa shogunate and its shogun-daimyô ruled clan system, these schools formed the painting orthodoxy of the day and were the “official painters” in service to the imperial court and the shogunal government. This system and its rigorously controlled methods of painting production could make their paintings become too conservative and lose their sense of free creativity. Indeed, this might be called the fate that burdened these painters locked into their social caste and position. This section introduces works produced in these specific school-styles until the middle of the 18th century. While the works in this section were painted in the typical painting styles of their period, these superb works also reveal the individual emphasis of their painters, reflecting the Price Collection’s focus on expression over famous painter name.

Highlights Landscape with Pine Tree and Birds, attributed to Kanô Motonobu Muromachi – Azuchi-Momoyama period, 16th century, two-panel folding screen, ink on paper The oldest work in the exhibition. This painting was originally a fusuma sliding-door painting later remounted in its present folding screen format. The work was created in the late style of Kanô Motonobu, the artist who created the basis for the Kanô School that continued from the Muromachi period through the Edo period. This work was not painted by Motonobu himself, but rather by a talented Kanô School painter of the generation after Motonobu.

Kasuga Wakamiya Festival, by Kanô Ryûsetsu Edo period, 17th-18th century, a pair of six-panel folding screens, ink and color on paper These screens depict the festival of the Kasuga Wakamiya Shrine in Nara. The festival procession trails across the entire two-screen composition, traveling from Kôfukuji to the Otabisho section of the Shrine. Ryûsetsu (1646-1712) was an official painter in service to the Tokugawa shogunate. He created wall paintings for the Imperial Palace in Kyoto, along with folding screen paintings for presentation by the shogunal government to the ruler of Korea.

Chapter 2. Kyoto Painters Japanese culture experienced a rare and fruitful period of development during the 2nd half of the 18th century. The Tokugawa shogunate’s policy to isolate Japan from the rest of the world enriched Japan’s own culture while also creating a craving among the Japanese for information on foreign countries. This combination of prosperity and curiosity set off new cultural trends. Revolutions in painting expression were mainly developed in the Kyoto area. While Edo was the political capital of the shogunate, Kyoto centered on the imperial family and court aristocracy preserved cultural traditions. Kyoto was a city of cultural treasures, many of which were owned by the massive temples and shrines throughout the city. The merchants and artisans of Kyoto rose in economic power as they formed a newly enriched urban class with progressive ideas. Their patronage led to the formation of painting styles filled with a freely imaginative power underpinned by awareness of cultural traditions. Maruyama Ôkyo (1733-1795) was one of the major painters among the painters creating new styles, and his painting style was developed into its own Shijô School by his followers, forming the basis for the Kyoto painting circles that lasted through the era. Nagasawa Rosetsu(1754-1766) was one of the richly individualistic painters trained by Ôkyo. This section also introduces works by painters from Osaka and Nagasaki.

Highlights Misty Landscape, by Maruyama Ôkyo Edo period, dated 1789, a pair of an eight -panel folding screen and a four -panel folding screen, ink and light color on paper Although Ôkyo was renowned for his realism, here he does not present an actual scene as is. Rather, he combines individual motifs in a new composition, with each motif rendered in techniques that grew from his life sketching experiences. Ôkyo’s followers developed this simple direct painting style into the signature style of their Shijô School of painters.

Bull and Elephant, by Nagasawa Rosetsu Edo period, 18th century, a pair of six -panel folding screens, ink on paper Nagasawa Rosetsu, Ôkyo’s most unusual student, created this startling work. Both white elephant and black bull extend far beyond the large screen format, and their combination with two crows and one white puppy setup a stunning contrast between white and black, large and small. Chapter 3. Eccentrics In the midst of the myriad avant-garde experiments that flourished in the 18th century Japanese literary and artistic circles, the paintings of Itô Jakuchû and Soga Shôhaku (1730-1781) stand out as truly unique forms of visual expression. Until Joe Price brought these paintings to light, we were unaware of their daring experiments. Jakuchû’s painting style elevated the humble barnyard chicken to the glory traditionally accorded to phoenixes in Asian painting. Some have tried to isolate his style by calling it extreme or fanciful. Instead, his transfer of real objects into traditional paradigms can be seen as a visual expression of the cutting edge trends of his day. Indeed, Jakuchû and his followers might even be considered the main trend in the 18th century .

Highlights Rooster, Hen and Hydrangeas, by Itô Jakuchû Edo period, 18th cenruty, hanging scroll, ink and color on silk This scroll is a masterpiece of Jakuchû’s particular specialty, paintings of chickens. Here the artist has taken his powerful observation of nature and combined it with a fervent imagination to create a phantasmagorical world. The minutely intricate techniques used in this painting give this otherwise otherworldly image a strangely vital sense of life. Jakuchû created this painting in his early 40s, when he had left his family business and dedicated himself to fulltime painting. This work has been handed down at Higashi Honganji, Kyoto.

Birds, Animals, and Flowering Plants, Mosaic screen, by Itô Jakuchû Edo period, 18th century, a pair of six -panel folding screens, ink and color on paper This painting created in a mosaic-type grid pattern has attracted considerable attention in recent years. While it is unsigned, the painting’s style indicates that the work is undoubtedly by Jakuchû’s hand. The painting beguiles its viewers with its unique technique and its image of a bird and animal paradise. There are approximately 86,000 individual squares in the grid that stretches across the two screens.

Chapter 4. Edo Painters Edo was a city in eastern Japan created to house the Tokugawa shogunal government. Even though Tokugawa Ieyasu made Edo the country’s new political capital, at first the town did not develop its own unique culture. Eventually the city grew, with the shogun’s samurai troops making up half the city’s population. In the 18th century Edo’s population topped 1 million people, making it the world’s largest city at the time. This massive city of warriors and townspeople developed their own unique urban culture. The ukiyo-e arts begun by Hishikawa Moronobu (? – 1694) were emblematic of this new Edo culture. The Price Collection includes many fine examples of ukiyo-e paintings, from paintings of beauties to humorous works with their vivid depictions of the figures populating the floating world of pleasure in the new capital. The playful gaze of these ukiyo-e artists even turned to such religious topics as the popular Buddhist saint Daruma. This section on Edo painters focuses on works by ukiyo-e artists, with additional genre paintings by ukiyo-e’s predecessors, Edo literati paintings(nanga), and such late examples of Edo cultural chic as Kawanabe Kyôsai (1831-1889) and Shibata Zeshin (1807-1891).

Highlights Two Beauties, by Katsukawa Shunshô Edo period, 18th century, hanging scroll, ink and color on silk At dawn as the cherry blossoms bloom, a courtesan relaxes in an interior setting as she writes a love letter. Here the two courtesans are drawn in sumptuous detail, while the section outside the open window is drawn in the light ink washes popular in the Hanabusa School of painting. This elegant contrast is quintessentially Shunshô in feel.

Lady in snow, by Isoda Koryûsai Edo period, 18th century, hanging scroll, ink and color on silk A woman appears behind a brushwood fence. Silvery snow falls on her through a bamboo grove – a single instant in time. This symphony in white is cleverly created in shell-white pigment, from the white figured satin and thin silk gauze of her robes to the powdery snow. This painting is a masterpiece from Koryûsai’s Hokkyô period.

Chapter 5. Edo Rimpa Fascinated by the painting style of Ogata Kôrin (1658- 1716), Sakai Hôitsu brought the Rimpa painting style to the Edo region from its source in Kyoto. While Kôrin’s paintings were based on the elegant traditions of earlier painting styles, Hôitsu learned from Rimpa painting techniques and then combined those techniques with haiku sensibility to create a heightened, and subtly witty, expression of the transience of the four seasons. These new paintings were immediately appealing to the people of Edo. Hôitsu’s student, Suzuki Kiitsu, followed his master’s style so thoroughly that he could paint works in Hôitsu’s stead. But after his teacher’s death, Kiitsu’s style changed dramatically. Capturing an instant of nature, adroitly contrasting colors and forms, Kiitsu’s bold compositions radiate a sense of the unusual. Kiitsu’s honed and resplendent sentiments can be fully experienced in Price Collection works.

Highlights The Thirty-six Poets on a Field of Flowers and Grasses, by Sakai Hôitsu Edo period, 19th century, a pair of six -panel folding screens, ink, color and gold on paper (squares: ink and color on silk) Sakai Hôitsu was the center of the Edo Rimpa School. This pair of screens reveals his talents in both painting and calligraphy. Gold ground screens were decorated with seasonal flowers and flowering trees depicted in rich pigments. Then the artist layered poem-squares depicting the 36 immortal poets across the composition. Hôitsu created the calligraphic renderings of each poet’s waka poetry in the calligraphy style of the earlier Rimpa artist, Hon’ami Kôetsu.

Egret and Willow, by Suzuki Kiitsu Edo period, 19th century, two -panel folding screen, ink and color on silk An early summer evening moment captured, as one elegantly white egret enjoys the shady cool. At first glance this painting might appear frozen and unmoving, but when candlelight is shone on this scene, the composition flickers to life and the gently wafting form of a flying white egret appears before our eyes. Enjoying the Exhibition

Joe Price’s Sensibility and the Space and Light surrounding Japanese Art “Light plays a very important role in the viewing of Japanese art.” This is Price’s key theory. The Price home in southern California is fitted with automatic blinds that adjust their position in harmony with sunlight levels. The home also features shôji (Japanese sliding door) screens that soften harsh side lighting. These special fittings modulate the blinding light unique to the California coast, helping to create superb light conditions perfect for appreciating Japanese art. Museums have sought “completely flat lighting” in their display of paintings. In this exhibition, one gallery is dedicated to an experimental section called “Light and a Painting’s Expressive Features.” Here, lighting devices will be fitted to transform the light into a shadow-filled natural light that reveals the features and expressions of the painting’s surface. This experiment in exhibition methods will be a success if it helps viewers enjoy and appreciate the many moods of the paintings as they are transformed by light.

An Official Exhibition Blog to Enjoy Everyday! An official The Price Collection – Jakuchû and the Age of Imagination exhibition blog website in Japanese (http://d.hatena.ne.jp/jakuchu/) opened on April 19th (Wed.). Until the exhibition opens, this blog will primarily feature object explanations and interviews with Joe Price. This innovative blog will provide web users with a great introductory taste of the 109 works they will be able to encounter in both the Jakuchû and the Age of Imagination exhibition and its corollary Family Gallery that open on July 4th. Other features of this new type of exhibition blog will include surveys about the development of official exhibition merchandise and other interactive ways for blog readers to participate. Blogs are a unique medium that enable readers to exchange the impressions through “track back”. This official blog will provide bloggers who have seen the exhibition with information on all the exhibits as well as an opportunity to look back and intensify their experience of the paintings.

Official exhibition website: http://www.jakuchu.jp/ Official exhibition blog (in Japanese at Hatena Diary website): http://d.hatena.ne.jp/jakuchu/