calendario eventi  :: 

X

19/3/2009

Utagawa Kuniyoshi

Royal Academy of Arts, London

Curated by Timothy Clark, Head of the Japanese Section in the Department of Asia at the British Museum together with Japanese print specialist, Israel Goldman and Dr Adrian Locke of the Royal Academy of Arts.

This Spring, the Royal Academy of Arts will present an exhibition on one of the greatest Japanese print artists, Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797 – 1861). Featuring over 150 works, the exhibition will present Kuniyoshi as a master of imaginative design. It will reveal the graphic power and beauty of his prints across an unprecedented range of subjects highlighting his ingenuous use of the triptych format. The majority of the exhibition will be drawn from the outstanding collection of Professor Arthur R. Miller which has recently been donated to the American Friends of the British Museum. This is the first major exhibition in the United Kingdom on Utagawa Kuniyoshi since 1961.

Kuniyoshi was a major master of the ‘floating world’, or Ukiyo-e school of Japanese art, and, together with Katsushika Hokusai (1760 – 1849), Utagawa Hiroshige (1797 – 1858) and Utagawa Kunisada (1786 – 1864), dominated nineteenth century printmaking in Japan. Prolific and multi- talented, Kuniyoshi considerably expanded the existing repertoire of the school, particularly with thousands of designs that brought vividly to life famous military exploits in Japan and China. He portrayed historic heroes of Japan’s warrior past and brigands from the Chinese adventure story The Water Margin giving dramatic pictorial expression to the great myths and legends that had accrued around them. Kuniyoshi’s images of heroes, with which he made his name, constitute the most important part of his artistic output. However, censorship regulations frequently required him to displace events of recent centuries to a more distant fictionalised past. Kuniyoshi developed an extraordinarily powerful and imaginative style in his prints, often spreading a scene dynamically across all three sheets of the traditional triptych format and linking the composition with one bold unifying element - a major artistic innovation.

Kuniyoshi was also very active in the other major subjects and genres of floating world art: prints of beautiful women, Kabuki actors, landscapes, comic themes, erotica and commissioned paintings. In each of these he was experimental, imaginative and distinctly different from his contemporaries. For example, he transformed the genre of landscape prints by incorporating Western conventions, such as cast shadows and innovative applications of perspective. This departure from tradition is an indication of his independent artistic spirit.

The exhibition will be divided into six sections beginning with ‘Kuniyoshi’s Imagination’ which presents the range of the artist’s repertoire and his unique treatment. Then there follow more in- depth selections: warriors, landscapes, beauties, theatre and humour. Highlights will include rare original brush drawings and a woodblock, a selection of extraordinary dynamic triptych prints and one of the only known examples of a set of twelve comic erotic prints.

The exhibition will include works from the American Friends of the British Museum (The Arthur R. Miller Collection), the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Museum of Scotland, the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge and private collections in Japan and USA.
Kuniyoshi is the third exhibition in a series dedicated to Japanese Artists and Printmakers to be held at the Royal Academy of Arts. The previous exhibitions have been Hokusai (1991-92) and Hiroshige: Images of Mist, Rain, Moon and Snow (1997).

This exhibition has been organised by the Royal Academy of Arts in collaboration with Arthur R. Miller and The British Museum.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue, written by Timothy Clark, which explores the impressive range of Kuniyoshi’s subject-matter, his distinctive approach to composition and the context of censorship in which he worked. All of the works presented in the exhibition are fully reproduced in colour. Digital photography of the Miller Collection is courtesy of Art Research Centre Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto.

Sponsor
James Leipnik, Chief of Communication and Corporate Relations, Canon Europe, Middle East and Africa, said: “Canon is delighted to support this exhibition that shares and celebrates the traditional culture of Japan. As a Japanese company with a long tradition in supporting culture and society through the arts, we are proud to be associated with one of the world’s finest art institutions and one of the greatest Japanese artists, Utagawa Kuniyoshi.”

Image: Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Sakata Kaidō-maru wrestles with a giant carp, c. 1837. Colour woodblock, ōban, 37.8 x 26 cm American Friends of the British Museum (The Arthur R. Miller Collection) 21215. Photo © Trustees of the British Museum, London

For further press information, please contact Johanna Bennett on tel. 020 7300 5615, fax 020 73008032, or email press.office@royalacademy.org.uk

Royal Academy of Arts
Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BD
Open to public:
Tuesday 17 March 10am – 2pm
10am – 6pm daily (last admission 5.30pm)
Late night openings: Fridays until 10pm (last admission 9.30pm)
£9 full price; £8 Registered Disabled and 60 + years; £7 NUS / ISIC cardholders; £4 12–18 years and Income Support; £3 8–11 years; 7 and under free.

stampa

permanent link