Yamanaka & Company:  An Asian American Story

Wednesday, May 26, 2021, 12 pm

Join researcher Najiba Choudhury and filmmaker Mika Yatsuhashi as they discuss the legacy of Yamanaka & Company, a Japanese art dealership whose owners endured discrimination and forced sales of their property during World War II. Yamanaka & Company was one of the most well-known art dealers selling Asian art to Western buyers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  A family business initially based in Osaka, Japan, it became a global leader in selling Asian art. Asian objects from East, South, and Southeast Asia sold by Yamanaka are now in leading museums around the world.  

This conversation features a screening of Yatsuhashi’s short film An Uninterrupted View of the Sea, which includes material from the Freer and Sackler and from the director’s own family archives. The film also streams here from May 26–31. 

Register here: https://smithsonian.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0td-qprjMuG9M9j0OEkdlr3vYRZDzF3djb