Tokio Ueyama, The Evacuee, 1942, oil on canvas, 24 x 30 in; Courtesy Japanese American National Museum; Gift of Kayoko Tsukada; ©Estate of Tokio Ueyama
The Life and Art of Tokio Ueyama
July 28, 2024 – June 1, 2025
Location: Martin Building, Level 7
The Life and Art of Tokio Ueyama features more than 40 paintings loaned to the museum by the Japanese American National Museum and Ueyama’s family, whose combined efforts to preserve his work have allowed the story of this accomplished and cosmopolitan artist to be told at the DAM for the first time.
Born in Japan, Tokio Ueyama moved to the United States in 1908 at age 18, where he made a home until his death in 1954. This exhibition tells the story of Ueyama’s life, including his early days as an art student in San Francisco, Southern California, and Philadelphia; his travels abroad in Europe and Mexico; his role as artist and community member in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles; and his incarceration during World War II at the Granada Relocation Center, now the Amache National Historic Site, in southeast Colorado.
Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, Tokio and his wife Suye were among more than 120,000 Japanese Americans forcibly relocated into American concentration camps. More than 10,000 people were incarcerated at Amache in the following years, making it the tenth largest “city” in Colorado at the time. There, Ueyama taught adult art classes to 150 students. This exhibition tells a story of a time in Colorado’s history, of a place where Americans experienced dislocation and loss, and, more importantly, displayed unimaginable resilience, tenacity, and creativity in the face of prejudice.
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Barrel-Shaped Bottle with Peony Motif 모란무늬 장군(액체를 담는 그릇). Korea, 1400s, Joseon dynasty (1392–1897). Buncheong with inlaid and stamped design. 8.75 × 6.25 in. dia. (22.2 × 15.9 cm dia.), National Museum of Korea: Bequest of Lee Kun-Hee, 2021. © National Museum of Korea
Perfectly Imperfect: Korean Buncheong Ceramics
December 3, 2023 – Ongoing
Location: Martin Building, Level 5
Perfectly Imperfect: Korean Buncheong Ceramics, co-organized with the National Museum of Korea (NMK), features exquisite works of Korean Buncheong ceramics from the 15th century to today, renowned for their white slip and adorned with diverse surface decorative techniques. The exhibition also includes 20th- and 21st-century paintings as well as 16 drawings by painters.
Sophisticated, playful, and engaging, buncheong ceramics became a uniquely Korean art form in the late 14th to 16th centuries. Elements of the buncheong style have remained relevant in modern and contemporary Korean art and have influenced other artistic expressions. Its refined and rustic aesthetic has been admired by generations of potters and artists in Korea and across the world.
Curated by Hyonjeong Kim Han, Joseph de Heer Curator of Arts of Asia, and Ji Young Park, National Museum of Korea Fellow of Korean Art at the Denver Art Museum, along with curators at NMK, Perfectly Imperfect inaugurates unique programs, exhibitions, and collaborations between the NMK and the DAM over the next three years.
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Shiva Holding a Trident, late 500s, Rajasthan Province southern, India, stone, 1982.15; Funds from Ruth Luby,Dorothy Hietler,Fay Carter & Norman Degan in loving memory of their parents, Nellie & Jesse Shwayder, & acquisition challenge fund
Arts of Asia Galleries
Ongoing
Location: Martin Building, Level 5
Originating with a major gift from Mr. Walter C. Mead in 1915, the Asian art collection is one of the earliest at the Denver Art Museum. It encompasses rare and important artworks from East Asia (China, Korea, and Japan), South and Southeast Asia, and Central and West Asia. Its holdings of some 7000 objects span nearly six millennia, from prehistoric to contemporary art. The collection boasts strengths in Chinese textiles from the Qing dynasty, South and Southeast Asian sculpture, ceramics from across the region, East Asian bamboo art, as well as Japanese Edo period painting and twentieth-century prints.
The reimagined Arts of Asia galleries showcase a breathtaking display of over 800 artworks collectively tracing visible and invisible links across time and space in the arts of Asia. Masterpieces include paintings by Edo master Itō Jakuchū, Northern Wei sarcophagus bearing animals of the cardinal directions, a ninth century BCE Assyrian bas-relief, and a Chola dynasty Dancing Śiva. Interweaved throughout are works by modern and contemporary artists such as Golnaz Fathi, Xu Bing, and Hamada Shoji.
The galleries also integrate exciting educational and interactive components, from immersive audiovisual assets to the well-loved touchable Ganesha sculpture, the remover of obstacles, and bringer of good fortune.
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