COMPLIMENTARY COPY
Published Weekly By Joel Sater Publications www.antiquesandauctionnews.net
VOL. 44, NO. 13 FRIDAY MARCH 29, 2013
Japanese Prints And Ivories Tell A Story Of Collecting At Carnegie Museum Of Art “Japan Is The Key...” Opens March 30 “Through her (Japan’s) temperament, her individuality, her deeper insight into the secrets of the East, her ready designing of the powers of the West, and more than all through the fact that she enjoys the privilege of being a pioneer, it may have been decreed in the secret council chambers of destiny that on her shores shall be first created the new art which shall prevail throughout the world for the next thousand years.”—Sadakichi Hartmann
object research and conservation, as well as a new look into institutional history. Sadakichi Hartmann and H. J. Heinz were vastly different men, united by a common fascination with Japan at the turn-of-the-century. Hartmann was a poet and critic of Japanese-German parentage. An exponent of modernism and japonisme, Hartmann seems to have masterminded the Carnegie Institute Department of Fine Arts’s controversial early exhibitions of Japanese prints and avant-garde
“Japan is the key to the Orient.”—H. J. Heinz
Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History, and linked Pittsburgh to an international discourse on Japan’s rapidly growing cultural and economic impact. “Japan is the Key…” presents highlights from these significant collections of rare prints (ukiyo-e) and ivories (okimono). Now spread between both museums, these artworks tell the stories of two personalities, each fascinated by the emerging cultural and aes- Utamaro Kitagawa (Japanese, 1754–1806). Place of birth and death from ULAN. ULAN cites name as Kitagawa Utamaro Chusuke Yamaguchiya (Japanese). Enjoying the evening cool on the banks of the Sumida river, 1795-1796, color woodblock print (oban, triptych).
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pening March 30, an exhibition of two rarely-seen Japanese collections from the early years of Carnegie Institute (now Museums of Art and Natural History) will capture the excitement and intrigue surrounding the museums’ first encounters with these exquisite objects. Presented in Gallery One at Carnegie Museum of Art, “Japan Is the Key…”: Collecting Prints and Ivories, 1900–1920 traces the development of these collections through the two larger-than-life men responsible for Carnegie Institute’s ambitious exhibitions of Japanese art in the first decade of the 20th century. By re-examining the museum of art’s masterwork prints, including works by Hiroshige, Hokusai, and Utamaro, along with the museum of natural history’s delicate, dynamic ivories, this exhibition allows for exciting new building-wide collaborations in
Kunisada (Toyokuni III) (Japanese, 1786–1865), Japanese printmaker and illustrator. Note: ULAN death date is 1864, and place of birth is Tokyo; Eikichi Uoya (Japanese). Artisans, 1857 color woodblock prints; vertical oban, triptych.
photography. He served as an assistant to John Beatty, director of Carnegie Institute’s department of fine arts. Although a number of prints that Hartmann selected turned out to be fakes or late editions, Hartmann was an eloquent writer on Japanese art, and his observations are quoted extensively throughout the exhibition.
thetic dialogue between Japan and the West. Both understood that 19th- and early 20th-century Japanese arts combined historic Asian traditions and avant-garde Western ideas in ways that could predict or shape the 20th century. Both also grasped that this exchange affected more than aesthetic tastes; it affected world
Katsushika Hokusai (Japanese, 1760–1849); Yohachi Nishimuraya, publisher; South Wind, Clear Dawn (Gaifu kaisei), c. 1830-1831 woodcut on paper. Purchase, 18.14.7. This spare and dramatic image of Mount Fuji is a later, rare, alternate state of Hokusai’s Red Fuji, one of the most famous ukiyo-e landscapes. Printed in a limited range of blues, black, and gray, it epitomizes the aesthetic relationship between traditional Japanese art and modern abstraction. Japanese; Long Procession of Toads; carved ivory. A skilled carver has transformed a single tusk of ivory into a lively parade of frogs/toads satirizing a Japanese warlord and his retainers on the move. Recent cleaning has revealed fascinating details, including a hammock full of baby amphibians slung between some marchers and the national flag with its central sun symbol colored with red pigment. Hiroshige Andô (Japanese, 1797–1858); Taheiji Okasawaya, publisher; A Night View of the Eight Famous Places in Kanazawa in Musashino Prefecture, (Buyô Kanazawa hassho yakei), 1857; woodcut on paper; triptych; Purchase, 18.14.10. Hiroshige exploits the panoramic format of the triptych (three vertical prints side by side) to create one of the few pure landscapes in the history of traditional Japanese printmak-
Maru Ki (Japanese), Figure of Soga Goro Fleeing. Ivory.
ing. Despite the realism of the scene, the artist’s emphasis on the province’s eight famous places relates to a centuries-old theme from Chinese poetry. Utamaro Kitagawa (Japanese, 1754–1806); Chusuke Yamaguchiya, publisher; Enjoying the evening cool on the banks of the Sumida river, 17951796; woodcut on paper (triptych); Purchase, 18.14.4. As a printmaker, Utamaro is renowned for his graceful line and refined, delicate coloring. The latter is on (Continued on page 2)
Hiroshige Andô (Japanese, 1797–1858). Japanese painter and printmaker; Taheiji Okasawaya (Japanese). A Night View of the Eight Famous Places in Kanazawa in Musashino Prefecture, 1857, color woodblock print (oban, triptych).
Heinz, a pillar of industrial America, visited Japan through his business engagements and his commitment to Christian ministry work, loaning his rapidly growing collection of ivory carvings to Carnegie Institute in 1910. Named Honorary Curator of Textiles, Time Pieces, and Ivory Carvings in 1914, Heinz continued to care for his possessions on public display and further augment the Heinz Collection through a series of gifts and loans until his death in 1919. Nobu Uki (Japanese), Figure of Both men left a legacy in the Girl. Ivory. collections of the Institute, now
culture. The exhibition opens March 30, 2013, in Gallery One of the museum’s Scaife Galleries and features over 50 rarely-seen Japanese prints, including traditional masterworks by Hiroshige Ando-, Katsushika Hokusai, Utamaro Kitagawa, and Kunisada (Toyokuni III), as well as highlights from Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s collection of Japanese ivory figures of people, animals, and gods. Katsushika Hokusai (Japanese, 1760–1849); Yohachi Nishimuraya Important works on view (Japanese). South Wind, Clear Dawn, c. 1830-1831, color woodblock print include the following: (oban).