Society for Asian Art Newsletter for Members September - October 2019 No. 5

As we look forward to all the new SAA fall programs, we are also excited to see Changing & Unchanging Things: Noguchi and Hasegawa in Postwar Japan. Here are some objects from this special exhibition, which will open on September 27.

Top left: War, 1952, by (American, 1904-1988). Shigaraki stoneware. Sogetsu Foundation, Tokyo. Photo courtesy of Sogetsu Foundation, Tokyo. Top right: Calligraphics, 1957, by Isamu Noguchi (American, 1904-1988). Iron, wood, rope, and metal. The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York. © The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York/ARS. Bottom left: The Butterfly Dream—from Zhuangzi, 1956, by Saburo Hasegawa (Japanese, 1906-1957). Ink on paper. Hasegawa Family Collection. © Estate of Saburo Hasegawa. Photo courtesy of the Hasegawa Family Collection. Bottom right: Nature, 1952, by Saburo Hasegawa (Japanese, 1906-1957). Wood rubbings; ink on paper. Museum of . Photo courtesy of the Kyoto .

The Society for Asian Art is a support organization for the IN THIS ISSUE

Fridays, August 23 – December 6 Fall 2019 Arts of Asia Lecture Series Seeking the Divine: The Lesser-Known Religious Traditions of Asia Society for Asian Art September - October 2019, No. 5 Saturday, September 14 Members’ Newsletter Member Event - Art and Culture During the Reign of King Sejong with Yi Song-mi Edited by John Nelson and Susan Lai Sundays, September, 22, September 29, October 27, November 10 and November 24 Published bimonthly by Society for Asian Art Fall 2019 Literature and Culture Course 200 Larkin Street Two Japanese Masterpiece Novels by Nobel Laureate Kenzaburo Oe with John , CA 94102 Wallace www.societyforasianart.org (415) 581-3701 Thursday, October 17 [email protected] Member Event - Hinges: Sakaki Hyakusen and the Birth of Nanga Painting with Copyright © 2019 Society for Asian Art Julia M. White Board of Directors 2019-2020 Saturday, October 19 Member Event - Textiles of Japan: The Thomas Murray Collection with Thomas President Trista Berkovitz Murray Vice President Margaret Edwards Vice President Ehler Spliedt Secretary Etsuko Kobata Treasurer Ed Baer UPCOMING EVENTS (subject to change) Edith Benay Margaret Booker Saturday, November 16 Lynne Brewer Study Group on Conservation Deborah Clearwaters* Kalpana Desai Sunday, December 8 Gloria Garaventa Kirk Gibson Annual Holiday Party Thomas Ihrig Nancy Jacobs Phyllis Kempner Peggy Mathers WELCOME TO NEW MEMBERS Forrest McGill* Lawrence Mock Howard Moreland John Nelson We would like to welcome the following new members, who joined the Pamela Royse Society in June and July. We are thrilled that you have decided to join us, Kathleen Slobin and hope you find our programs and events interesting and engaging. Nazneen Spliedt Please don’t hesitate to ask questions and give us feedback. Welcome! Marsha Vargas Handley Diane Weber Sylvia Wong Vaishali Chadha Maeve Metzger Kasey Yang Donna Diseroad Valerie Jo & Richard Remley Jane Fernald Christine & Wilfred Robles *ex officio Constance & James Guidotti Teresa Tan Stanley Hartzell Anna & Walter Vorster Riko Hirai Barbara Hurtig John Kelly Kristi Kramer & Joseph O’Hagan Peter Mates

2 ARTS OF ASIA FALL 2019 LECTURE SERIES

Seeking the Divine: The Lesser-Known Religious Traditions of Asia

Zoroastrian deity Fushimi Shrine, Japan

When: Fridays, August 23 – December 6 (No lecture on October 18 and November 29.) Time: 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Place: September 6 and December 6 at the State Building, Milton Marks Auditorium, 455 Golden Gate Avenue. All other lectures at UC Hastings College of the Law, Snodgrass Hall, 198 McAllister Street. Fee: $175 Society members, $200 non-members for the series. $20 per lecture drop-in, subject to availability.

For over 25 years, the Arts of Asia Lecture Series has explored the many facets of Asian art, culture, and history. Now for the first time, we will delve into the finer points of religious beliefs in Asia – not the major religions with which our audience is already familiar, but the facets of Asian religious beliefs that are less known in the West yet continue to inform cultural traditions today. The lectures in this series will explore Zoroastrianism in the Iranian world, Manichaeism in Central and East Asia, Bon in Tibet, Mongolian Tengriism, Muism of Korea and folk religions in Asia. We will also explore Daoism in China, Shintoism in Japan, and Jainism in India, and examine more recent traditions such as Sufism in Asia, and Sikhism. Please join us for this informative and fascinating journey.

Our Instructor of Record is Sanjyot Mehendale of UC Berkeley.

August 23 October 11 Other Paths – A Panorama of Asia’s Lesser Known Divine Traditions How is Mansin Like a Painting? The Work of Shamans in Korea Sanjyot Mehendale, UC Berkeley Laurel Kendall, Columbia University

August 30 October 25 Zoroastrians in Time and Space: Iran, India, and the Silk Road The Pearl and the Dragon: Silk Road Christianity From Syria to Jenny Rose, Claremont Graduate University Xi’an Scott Johnson, University of Oklahoma September 6 Peaceful Warriors: The Origins and Continuing Vitality of Jainism November 1 Jeffery D. Long, Elizabethtown College Manichaeism: The Religion that (Almost) Disappeared Zsuzsanna Gulacsi, Northern Arizona University September 13 The Great Unnamed Religions of East Asia: Divine Presence, Numinous November 8 Power and Magical Efficacy Sikh Religion in the Language of Colors James Robson, Harvard University Nikky Gurinder Kaur Singh, Colby College

September 20 November 15 Daoism and the Arts of China Seeking the Divine through Art and Architecture, a Baha’i Architect’s Stephen Little, Los Angeles County Museum of Art Perspective Hossein Amanat, AIA September 27 Shinto for the Masses: Packaging Myth and Nationalism for Japanese November 22 Society The Tibetan Bon Religion and the “Nameless Religion” of Tibet John Nelson, University of San Francisco Brandon Dotson, Georgetown University

October 4 December 6 Sky and Earth: Exploring the Non-Buddhist Religious Traditions of Sufism, Beauty, Love: Ecstasy and Rapture of Islam in Asia Mongolia Carol Bier, Graduate Theological Union Uranchimeg (Orna) Tsultem, University of Iceland

3 LITERATURE AND CULTURE FALL 2019 COURSE

Two Japanese Masterpiece Novels by Nobel Laureate Kenzaburo Oe With John Wallace

When: Sundays, September 22, September 29, October 27, November 10, and November 24 Time: 10:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Place: Koret Education Center, Asian Art Museum Fee: $115 Society members; $140 non-members (after museum admission).

We will read and discuss the two highest-acclaimed novels of Kenzaburo Oe, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1994. The first, A Personal Matter, was written shortly after his handicapped child Hikari was born. It deals with how a young man in his twenties can or cannot find the courage and personal power to take on the challenge of loving and caring for his new, mentally disabled son. The second, The Silent Cry, results from Oe’s deep reading of William Faulkner. This somewhat long, very rich novel takes as its themes the love between brothers, a wife finding her Magnolia and quince, from the flowers of the twelve months: March, approx. 1670–1710, by independence, the balance between truth-seeking thought and political activism, Yun Bing (Chinese, 1670–1710). Ink and colors and how difficult it can be to “understand” one’s family. Oe was deeply influenced on silk. Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, The by French humanism as well as a wide range of writers from the American deep Avery Brundage Collection, B65D49.d. Photograph © Asian Art Museum of San south, Europe, and Asia. Some of these poets, novelists, and philosophers will be Francisco. discussed along the way.

John Wallace is Senior Lecturer in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at UC Berkeley, where he teaches premodern Japanese language and literature, modern Japanese literature and East Asian traditions. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University. He is also an SAA Advisor and has taught several Literature and Culture courses in the past. MEMBER EVENTS

Art and Culture During the Reign of King Sejong With Yi Song-mi

When: Saturday, September 14 Time: 10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Place: Koret Education Center, Asian Art Museum Fee: $15 Society members; $20 non-members (after museum admission)

This year marks the 600th anniversary of the beginning of King Sejong's reign. This lecture highlights several of his illustrious achievements beginning with his invention of han’geul, the phonetic Korean writing system. His other achievements to be discussed are: creation of scientific devices (rain gauge, celestial globe); enacting regulations for the Five Rites of the State; creation of Korean ceremonial court music; innovation in calendric system; development of the moveable metal type called eulhae-ja (1455) for printing the Veritable Records of King Sejong.

Yi Song-mi, Professor Emerita of Art History at the Academy of Korean Studies, previously Diorama at the Han’geul Museum showing King Sejong the Great (b. 1397: served as Dean of the Graduate School at the Academy. She has also served as President of the r. 1418~1450) at work with the creation Korean Art History Association. In April of 2014, she served as a Special Lecturer at the Tang of Hunmin jeong’eum 訓民正音. Center for East Asian Art History at Princeton University. Prof. Yi was educated at Seoul Photo courtesy of Yi Song-mi. National University (BA), UC Berkeley (MA), and Princeton University (PhD).

4 MEMBER EVENTS

Hinges: Sakaki Hyakusen and the Birth of Nanga Painting With Julia M. White When: Thursday, October 17 Time: 11:00 a.m. Place: Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) 2155 Center Street, Berkeley Fee: $15 Society members; $20 non-members.

Hinges: Sakaki Hyakusen and the Birth of Nanga Painting is the first U.S. exhibition to focus on the art of Sakaki Hyakusen (1697-1752), the founding father of the Nanga school of painting in Japan, and his relationship to Chinese painting of the Ming and Qing dynasties. The exhibition highlights the extensive conservation of Mountain Landscape, an eighteenth-century pair of six-fold screens by Hyakusen. A gift of the late Professor Emeritus James Cahill, one of the world’s leading authorities on Nanga painting, Mountain Landscape was recognized by Cahill as a masterpiece. Presenting the Sakaki Hyakusen, Two Ladies by screens alongside traditional Chinese landscape paintings and works by Nanga school painters, the a Stream (detail). Hanging scroll, exhibition is designed to illuminate important cross-cultural and artistic connections between Japan ink and color on paper. UC and China. The project will demonstrate Hyakusen’s close observation of Chinese painting and his role Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Photograph by in the transformation of Japanese painting of the eighteenth century, a hinge between two artistic Jonathan Bloom. traditions.

You will also have a chance to see two other exhibitions at BAMPFA: Meditation in Motion: Calligraphy from the Stuart Katz Collection, and Divine Women, Divine Wisdom.

Julia M. White is Senior Curator for Asian Art at BAMPFA. She has curated numerous exhibitions at BAMPFA including the landmark exhibition, Repentant Monk: Illusion and Disillusion in the Art of Chen Hongshou, in 2017, focusing solely on the late Ming dynasty painter Chen Hongshou (1599-1652). Ms. White is a graduate of UC Berkeley History of Art department. Textiles of Japan: The Thomas Murray Collection With Thomas Murray

When: Saturday, October 19 Time: 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Place: Koret Education Center, Asian Art Museum Fee: $15 Society members; $20 non-members (after museum admission)

Textiles are an eloquent form of cultural expression and of great importance in the daily life of Japanese people, as well as in their rituals and ceremonies. Thomas Murray will speak to us about his Textiles of Japan collection, composed of hand-made textiles used by country people, Japan, 20th century, cotton tsutsugaki (freehand resist). Photo courtesy of Thomas Murray. farmers, and fisherman. He will offer insight into Japan's complex textile history, discussing the Mingei Movement's philosophy that inspired his collecting, and warned that modernization would leave behind hand weaving and dyeing, encouraging the preservation of the craft and the traditional textiles. This very fine and extensive collection has recently been published in a widely acclaimed and lavishly illustrated book, Textiles of Japan.

Thomas Murray is an independent researcher, collector, lecturer and private dealer of Asian and Tribal art with an emphasis on Indonesian sculpture and textiles, as well as animistic art from other varied cultures. He also features Indian trade cloths from the 14th to the 18th centuries. A HALI magazine contributing editor for the last 30 years, Murray serves as their "in-house" expert on all tribal sculpture and textiles, with more than 50 publications.

5 TRAVEL

Save the Date! Gardens & Museums of Pasadena - November 12 – 17, 2019

Japanese Garden at Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens. Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena. Photo © Norton Simon Museum.

The Society for Asian Art’s upcoming trip to Pasadena is planned to begin with a welcome reception on the evening of November 12th and will end with a closing dinner at the Langham/Huntington Hotel on Saturday, November 16th. The highlights of the trip will be a visit to the Norton Simon Museum with scholar Robert Brown, the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, Gamble House, Pacific Asia Museum and a visit to a private Japanese basket collection, tea room and Japanese garden.

The opportunity to sign up for this trip will be available in mid to late August for SAA members only.

LOTUS LEAVES

The Spring 2019 Issue is Now Online! We are delighted to present an article on Bencharong ceramics, highly colorful export ceramics made in China for the Thai royal family. Dawn Rooney, who is the author of the seminal work on these ceramics, provides an excellent overview of this art form. In the second article, Asian Art Museum Associate Curator of Korean Art, Hyonjeong Kim Han, takes us into the world of a master Korean calligrapher, Kim Jeonghui, and shows how his work reflects the intellectual milieu in which he lived. The issue concludes with a short article by Asian Art Museum Deputy Director, Robert Mintz, about Your Dog, the contemporary Japanese culture that graced Osher Plaza in front of the museum until recently. To access online issues of Lotus Leaves: • Go to the SAA website, www.societyforasianart.org. • Click on the “Lotus Leaves” tab on the banner along the top of the homepage. This will open the Lotus Leaves webpage. • Click on “View PDF” of the issue you would like to read. Cover of Spring 2019 Issue of Lotus Leaves. To print a copy of Lotus Leaves: © Society for Asian Art. • Press “Ctrl and P” on your keyboard at the same time. • Follow the commands your computer gives you to print a copy.

6 REGISTRATION FORM

How to Register 1. Go to our website, www.societyforasianart.org, sign up and pay online; OR

2. Print and fill out this registration form, and send it with a check or the credit card information to: Society for Asian Art, 200 Larkin Street, San Francisco, CA 94102.

SAA does not issue tickets or confirmations. You will be contacted ONLY if your registration cannot be completed. Requests for refunds are granted for cancellations received by the SAA office no later than one business week before the start of the event. Paid Programs Fee Quantity Subtotal

q August 23 - December 6 Fall 2019 Arts of Asia Lecture Series: Seeking the Divine: The Lesser $175 Members Known Religious Traditions of Asia $200 Non-Members

$15 Members q September 14 Member Event - Art & Culture During the Reign of King Sejong with Yi Song-mi $20 Non-Members

q September 22 - November 24 Fall 2019 Literature & Culture Course: Two Japanese $115 Members Masterpiece Novels by Nobel Laureate Kenzaburo Oe with John Wallace $140 Non-Members

q October 17 Member Event - Hinges: Sakaki Hyakusen and the Birth of Nanga Painting with Julia M. $15 Members White $20 Non-Members

$15 Members q October 19 Member Event - Textiles of Japan: The Thomas Murray Collection with Thomas Murray $20 Non-Members

Total Amount ______Name ______Email ______Phone ______

Address ______Zip Code ______

Check Number ______Check Amount ______Check Date ______Charge registration fees to my credit card (CHECK ONE): q Visa q MasterCard q Discover q American Express

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______Signature Date

Donations for Book Sale

We now accept books throughout the year for our annual Book Sale. So if you move, downsize or are tired of all the books collecting dust in your home, please donate them to our Book Sale. We are accepting books with Asian subjects only, be it art, culture, novels, history, travel, cooking, exhibition catalogues or others.

Due to construction at the museum, we are unable to accept book donations at the SAA office. You can drop off books at the Friday morning Arts of Asia lectures at UC Hastings. If you have a lot of books, we are happy to pick them up from your home within the Bay Area. Please contact the SAA office at 415-581-3701 or [email protected] for details.

7 Society for Asian Art 200 Larkin Street San Francisco, CA 94102 (415) 581-3701 [email protected] www.societyforasianart.org

Left: Great Chorus, 1952, by Saber Hasegawa (Japanese, 1906-1957). Ink on paper. Japan Society, New York. Photo courtesy of Japan Society, New York. Right: Orpheus, 1958, by Isamu Noguchi (American, 1904-1988). Aluminum. The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York. © The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York/ARS. Photograph by Kevin Noble.

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