Newsletter2005-06 / ISSUE 3 KEN TADASHI OSHIMA The signing of the cooperative research agreement in 2005 between the Sainsbury Institute and the Art Research Center (ARC), Ritsumeikan University at the Lisa Sainsbury Library in Norwich (left to right): Simon Kaner, Mami Hatayama, Masayoshi Genjö, Cassy Payne, Peter Yeoh, Masae Kurahashi, Ryö Akama, Ikuyo Matsumoto, Masatsugu Hongö, Masao Kawashima, Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere, John T. Carpenter, Princess Akiko of Mikasa, Jane Oksbjerg, Junko Mutö, Alan Jones, Hiromi Uchida, Sue Womack, Alice Livingstone, Akira Hirano FROM THE DIRECTOR agreement with Kyushu University, was facilitated by the strong support The past year which was inaugurated last year by a of the Embassy of Japan in the UK, in has been another series of lectures on archaeology in particular Ambassador Yoshiji Nogami. Fukuoka and Norwich. The commitment of funding means extremely busy and We are pleased to announce the that we can continue to support the commitment of generous funding to secondment of Hiromi Uchida to the fruitful time for the assist the British Museum raised by Japanese Section in the Department of Sainsbury Institute the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Asia at the British Museum. Industry, which is initially assured Among the past year’s highlights in both Norwich for three years. This crucial funding were the one-day workshop ‘Displaying Korea and Japan’ held at the British and London, as well Museum, and the Toshiba Lectures as at institutions in Japanese Art, presented by Louise Allison Cort at the British Museum abroad with whom and SOAS in London, and as part of the Third Thursday Lecture Series in we have embarked on Norwich. collaborative ventures. Finally, we would particularly like to express our thanks to the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Charitable Trust Along with our affiliations to the for its continuing support of two University of East Anglia, the School of annual postdoctoral fellowships, and Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), to Haruhisa Handa for his sponsorship and the British Museum, we have of the Handa Fellow programmes in entered into new collaborative research Norwich and London. Most of all, we agreements with Japanese academic are deeply indebted to the unstinting institutions. In Kyoto, the Art Research support of Lady Sainsbury, and to the Centre (ARC) at Ritsumeikan University vision she and her late husband, Sir has drawn up an agreement with Robert, has bestowed on the Institute. n the Institute to cooperate on various Toshiba Lectures in Japanese Art poster for research and digital archive projects. ‘Towards A Better Tea Bowl: Art, Industry and NICOLE COOLIDGE ROUSMANIERE We have also signed a new collaborative Ambition in Seventeenth-Century Japan’ 02 SAINSBURY INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF JAPANESE ARTS AND CULTURES Lecture Series E FF I CL TOSHIBA LECTURES IN JAPANESE ART AT R ENN An overarching theme of the Toshiba Lectures GL has been the illumination of a particular era of Japanese art through the eyes of an individual artist or important cultural figure of the time. Louise Allison Cort Morita set up a workshop where on In the course of Louise’s lectures, occasion he took his portable wheel audiences were introduced to a rich out to actually demonstrate the potting array of tea ceramics accompanied by process in daimyo drawing rooms. explanations as to how these objects With the 2005 lectures focusing captured the changing aesthetics and on ceramics, the Sainsbury Institute taste of the period. The products of the was honoured to be able to dedicate the Odo kilns were set in the context of series to the memory of Oliver Impey, the development of domestic Japanese former Keeper of Japanese Art at the ceramic manufacture and the influences Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, who from Korea and China. died in September 2005 after a battle The first lecture was given at the BP Masahiro Ogura, Menno Fiske with cancer. The first lecture in the Lecture Theatre in the British Museum. series was accordingly prefaced by a The series was introduced by Timothy In 2003, Donald Keene gave an account moving statement by Menno Fitski, Clark, Head of the Japanese Section in of the life and times of the Edo period Oliver Impey’s son-in-law and curator the Department of Asia at the British literati painter Watanabe Kazan, and at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and Museum, and Masahiro Ogura of the following year John Rosenfield made we were grateful to Oliver’s widow, Jane Toshiba Europe. Monk Chōgen of the Nara period the Impey, for attending the lecture. The second lecture, on 14 November, focus of his presentations in London and was introduced by Craig Clunas, Norwich. Percival David Professor of Chinese Louise A. Cort, the speaker for last Art and Head of Department of Art year’s Toshiba Lectures in Japanese Art, and Archaeology at SOAS, and John continued in this vein by tracking the Carpenter, Lecturer in Japanese Art at activities of Morita Kyūemon, a talented SOAS and Head of the London Office of potter of the Tosa domain, who also the Sainsbury Institute. seemed to be particularly in tune with Louise travelled to Norwich to give important people and cultural trends the third and final talk in the series in throughout Japan at that time. Louise’s conjunction with the Third Thursday series of talks was invitingly entitled Lecture Series, supported by the Great ‘Towards a Better Tea Bowl’. Britain Sasakawa Foundation and the Morita Kyūemon initially set up a Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Charitable kiln in the relatively unknown town of Trust, was given in Blackfriars’ Hall in Odo, but was despatched to Edo in 1678 central Norwich. It was introduced by by Yamauchi Toyomasa, the fourth lord David Eastwood, Vice-Chancellor of of Tosa, a highly cultivated samurai the University of East Anglia and Chair who was a patron of Noh theatre. In the of the Board of Management of the course of his journey to the military Sainsbury Institute, and Nicole Coolidge capital Morita took in important kilns Rousmaniere. along on the way, including that of the The Sainsbury Institute is most son of Nonomura Ninsei. grateful to the Toshiba International In Edo he was taken under the wing Foundation for their generous of the tea master and cultural advisor sponsorship of the lecture series, and to the Tosa clan, Nishiyama Kyūbei. Donald Keene’s new book, Frog in the Well: to the Japan Society and the British Portraits of Japan by Watanabe Kazan, A portable potter’s wheel and a supply 1793-1841, is based on the Toshiba Lectures Museum for their assistance with of clay from Tosa was sent to Edo and Professor Keene gave in November 2003 promoting the lectures. n SAINSBURY INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF JAPANESE ARTS AND CULTURES 03 and Symposia SYMPOSIUM DISPLAYING KOREA AND JAPAN WORKSHOP NAVIGATING THE MEIJI/VICTORIAN To mark Japan-Korea WORLDS Friendship Year, on 10 9 On 13 May 2005 the Sainsbury November 2005 a one- Institute co-organised a symposium with TrAIN (Transnational Art, Identity day public workshop & Nation) research centre at the Chelsea College of Art and Design. was organised by the This interdisciplinary workshop brought together scholars of archaeology, art Sainsbury Institute and architecture to examine aspects of and the Department the work of Christopher Dresser (1834- 1904), Edward Sylvester Morse (1838- of Asia at the British 1925) and Josiah Conder (1852-1920), Seunghye Sun Yukiko Shirahara three late nineteenth-century figures Museum on the theme who transcended national identity and at the British Museum, James Lewis academic specialisation. of ‘Displaying Korea from the Faculty of Oriental Studies at The diversity of Christopher and Japan’. the University of Oxford, spoke about Dresser’s work was presented by relations and comparisons between Korea and Japan from antiquity to the Nine speakers discussed topics relating present day. Gina Lee Barnes, Durham to the display of Korean and Japanese University, discussed how archaeology objects in museum contexts, including moves beyond the objects themselves the definition of Korea and Japan to understand the regional contexts of in the present and the past, special their production, circulation and use. considerations when displaying Asian Simon Kaner of the Sainsbury Institute objects outside their countries of origin closed the morning session by presenting and national cultural policies. the history of the Gowland collection of Following an introduction by Robert Korean and Japanese antiquities at the Left to right: Toshio Watanabe, Nicole Knox, Keeper of the Department of Asia British Museum as a case study. Coolidge Rousmaniere, Simon Kaner In the second session, Yukiko Ken Tadashi Oshima, who described Shirahara (a former Handa Fellow at the Dresser’s many roles as ornamentalist, Institute), described the collections and designer, collector, Modernist and exhibitions of Japanese and Korean art Victorian. Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere at the Seattle Art Museum where she spoke on Morse’s interest in Japanese is Curator of East Asian Art. Seunghye pottery and his association with the Sun, just arrived from the opening of the Peabody Essex Museum, while Simon Kaner discussed Morse’s contribution new National Museum of Korea where to Japanese archaeology and zoology. she is Curator of Japanese Art, gave an Toshio Watanabe, Director of TrAIN, introduction to the new museum and discussed the significance of Conder’s issues concerning the Japanese gallery. landscape gardening in Japan to both In the final session of the day, Japan and the West, while Timothy Beth McKillop, Anna Jackson, Jane Clark of the British Museum examined Portal and Timothy Clark talked about the collaboration between Conder with the collections for which they are the artist Kawanabe Kyosai. responsible in the Victoria and Albert To conclude the workshop, papers Museum and the British Museum.