Asia Week Gallery Exhibition | 16 March - 28 June 2013

Asia Week in New York - March 15 through March 23 this year - is one of New York City's great weeks for people interested in Asian art. There are museum exhibitions, lectures, auctions, and over 50 gallery shows in the Upper East Side.

Our gallery exhibition during Asia Week, Taishō Period Screens and Scrolls & Porcelain Sculpture by Sueharu Fukami, will feature a dozen folding screens and hanging scrolls from the Taishō and early Shōwa periods, 1910-1935, a time of great change in Japan and its vibrant arts scene. Superb art works were made for the domestic market, which was a notable change from the export-oriented output during the Meiji period. Though artists of the Taishō and Shōwa periods typically remained focused on traditional themes, the works often show influences from the West and experimentations with new materials and perspectives. And artists became more competitive: they strived to have works exhibited at one of the prestigious annual national exhibitions, and these showpieces were generally oversized to stand out in the large exhibition halls.

One such over-sized work is Vying Peacocks by Ishizaki Kōyō (1884-1947), a pair of six-panel screens which span almost 32 feet. The dramatic painting in mineral colors, gold and silver is on a silk ground backed by gold leaf. The extravagant technique, called urahaku, came into being during the Taishō-early Shōwa periods.

The gallery exhibition also presents six contemporary abstract porcelain sculptures by the acclaimed Japanese ceramic artist Sueharu Fukami, three horizontal and three vertical works. A new work by Fukami, his largest work to date and standing almost two-meters tall, is currently on view in the Japanese gallery of the Metropolitan Museum.