Kiyoshi Hamada, DRAWING(84), 1984, paper, pencil, 96.5 x 44.1 in. (245 x 112 cm)

Kiyoshi Hamada: Gazing Into Stillness – Works 1975–2026
September 10 – November 7, 2026
Opening Reception: Thursday, Sept 10, 6-8pm
525 West 26th Street, NYC

During this AWNY Autumn season, Seizan Gallery is pleased to present Kiyoshi Hamada: Gazing Into Stillness — Works 1975–2026, on view from September 10 through November 7, 2026. The exhibition surveys significant works from 1975 to the present by one of the hidden giants of postwar Japanese art. Active since the early 1960s, Hamada has remained a singular figure, working alongside — though never within — the postwar avant-garde movements and groups that surrounded him such as Gutai and Mono-ha. Tracing the evolution of his techniques and materials, the exhibition follows a question Hamada has pursued for over half a century: not what a painting should depict, but how a painting itself — its support, its materials, and the traces of the hand — comes into being.

The exhibition opens with Hamada’s early “plywood paintings,” a series he developed from the mid-1970s through the early 1980s and identifies as the point of origin of his practice. The works bear the influence of Yoshishige Saitō (1904–2001), who rejected painting as representational image and held instead that the process itself constituted the essence of the work — painting as matter inscribed with the traces of its own making. Each plywood painting is composed of multiple narrow black panels, each crossed by a single thin line of orange-red. Their austerity of composition and palette, carried later into his woodblock prints, aligns with the Minimalist and Conceptual currents of the years in which the works were made. Yet their source is intimate: the artist’s memory, from a childhood in Kōchi, of dawn breaking over the Pacific horizon.

Following his success in woodblock printmaking — a collaborative process that limited the artist’s hands-on involvement — Hamada turned to a more elemental and labor-intensive act: working directly with his hands. Begun in the 1980s, the Drawing series is attentive to the physicality embedded in the act of drawing itself. Working in graphite on paper, he filled squares and rectangles with countless strokes until each surface hardened into a dense, lustrous black. What results is no longer an image but sheer matter — time made visible through accumulation. “Drawing, for me, lies in working the surface of the paper over with pencil, patiently, until a robust pictorial substance is built up,” the artist has said. “It is an act of holding oneself under control while taking the measure of one’s distance from oneself.”

Through the 1990s and 2000s, Hamada continued to pursue abstraction through material and technique. Alongside his ongoing work in pencil, he turned to canvas and paint, building up layer after layer of color and then cutting back down into the surface with brushes, painting knives, and carving gouges. The method draws on tsuishu, the traditional lacquer technique in which coat upon coat of urushi is applied and then carved in relief. With this craft sensibility behind it, the work extends his inquiry into the physicality of making: each excavated line exposes the strata of time held within the surface. The three-panel 28-10-21 (2016) is among the finest works in the series. Red, black, and beige interlace across the surface, evoking at once a shimmering atmosphere and the hide of an animal.

The exhibition closes with two large ink paintings, newly created for this occasion. Across a career of more than fifty years, Hamada has laid down stroke after stroke by his own hand, seeking the weight a work accrues through that labor and the sense of time held within it — while remaining in dialogue with his formative encounters with nature in childhood. “The repetition of action that characterizes Hamada’s work resembles the motion of waves breaking endlessly on the shore,” writes Mari Tsukamoto, Chief Curator at The Museum of Art, Kochi, who organized his 2025 retrospective. “Perhaps Hamada pursues a system as a framework for giving form to that landscape through his own body, and so gives himself over to the thoroughly repetitive act.”

To learn more, click here.

Onihira Keiji, Makie Box, Ōmurasaki between Sun and Shade, 2025, dry lacquer with white mother-of-pearl, jewel beetle wings, eggshell, gold, silver, platinum, pigments, 6 ¾ × 11 × 5 ⅞ in. (17.1 × 28.2 × 14.8 cm)

Across the Sea: Onishi Gallery with Homo Faber
September 10–30, 2026
Opening Reception: Thursday, Sept 10, 5-8pm
Gallery Talk by Xiaohan Du: Saturday, Sept 12 at 3pm
16 East 79th Street, Ground Fl, NYC
Special AWNY Hours from Sept 10-19: Open daily, 10am-5pm

To celebrate their 20th anniversary, Onishi Gallery is pleased to present a special exhibition bringing together the work of ten artists, four of whom will also participate in the 2026 edition of Homo Faber on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice this September. Homo Faber, meaning “human as maker,” embodies in many ways the inner spirit that drives artistic creation. The exhibition brings together works in ceramics, metal, lacquer, and other media, each possessing its own distinctive material language and engaging in a profound dialogue with its maker.

As Kaneshige Kosuke (b. 1943) shapes iron-rich Bizen clay into vessels, he is simultaneously engaged in a dialogue with the material. Rusu Aki (b. 1976) wields a welding torch to join delicate fragments of metal, evoking Prometheus wielding the legendary flame. Konno Tomoko (b. 1967) layers countless tiny, hair-follicle-like forms to create ceramic works filled with seemingly infinite imagery. Onihira Keiji (b. 1973) employs gold, silver, crushed quail eggshells, white mother-of-pearl, South Sea abalone shell, and other materials to recreate the cosmos within his lacquer works. Noguchi Ken (b. 1982) constructs sinuous, concentric waves across gracefully curved and richly rounded lacquer forms. Their layered, luminous black surfaces evoke the profound imagery of the ocean embedded within the Japanese cultural psyche.

Participation in this year’s Homo Faber exhibition marks an important milestone in the gallery’s 20-year history and ushers their longstanding mission to promote and support Japanese kōgei into a new phase. Many of the artists in this exhibition have encountered aesthetic ideas and perspectives outside their own traditions. These encounters have prompted them to reconsider the traditions of Japanese art and transform them into forms of contemporary artistic expression.

This fall, their works will cross the seas, appearing in both New York and Venice and encountering audiences from around the world.

They forward to welcoming you soon!

To learn more, click here,

Krishna and Radha Sheltering in a Pavilion from a Storm. India, Rajput. Guler School, circa 1820. Watercolor, gold and tempera on paper. Asia Society, New York: Gift from Sandra Ferry Rockefeller in memory of John D. Rockefeller 3rd and Blanchette H. Rockefeller, 2025.7. Courtesy Asia Society

In addition to the exceptional exhibitions at our AWNY member galleries and auction houses during Autumn Asia Week New York, our member museums across New York City and the surrounding area are also presenting an exciting array of Asian art exhibitions and programs this month. Explore our highlights below and discover what’s on view and happening throughout September. Click on each museum heading for more information.

ASIA SOCIETY MUSEUM

Buddha and Shiva, Lotus and Dragon: Celebrating 70 Years of Asia Society and the Rockefeller Legacy
Through January 3, 2027

Displaying seventy of the finest examples of Asian art in the United States drawn from Asia Society’s permanent collection, the exhibition showcases the extraordinary range of bronzes, ceramics, and metalwork thoughtfully assembled between the 1950s and the 1970s by John D. Rockefeller 3rd (1906-1978) and his wife Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller (1909-1992). With highlights including spectacular Buddhist and Hindu sculptures, and rare Chinese, Korean, and Japanese ceramics, this exhibition celebrates historic achievements in Asian art spanning more than two millennia.

Recent Acquisitions from Hope Aldrich and Sandra Ferry Rockefeller
and
Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller and the Rockefeller Collection
Through January 3, 2027

Concurrently on view with Buddha and Shiva, Lotus and Dragon: Celebrating 70 Years of Asia Society and the Rockefeller Legacy are two companion displays. The first features recent acquisitions from Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd’s daughters Hope Aldrich and Sandra Ferry Rockefeller, along with five comparative pieces from Asia Society Museum’s permanent collection. In addition, Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller and the Rockefeller Collection, on display in the Visitors Center, includes works Mrs. Rockefeller gave to the museum after the foundational bequest in 1979.

Busy, Busy Towns: Moving Images of a Changing Asia
Through January 3, 2027

The exhibition highlights seven works from the Asia Society Museum Collection exploring how cultural, political, and ecological change has transformed cities across contemporary Asia, particularly China, Indonesia, and Taiwan. Featuring works by Song Dong, Chen Shaoxiong, Tromarama, and Chen Chieh-jen, the exhibition showcases innovative moving-image techniques while reflecting on urbanization, consumerism, gentrification, industrial decline, and environmental change.

CHARLES B. WANG CENTER AT STONY BROOK UNIVERSITY

Courtesy Charles B. Wang Center

Walking the World: Gareth Fuller’s Art of Place
September 9 – December 18, 2026
Opening Reception: Wednesday, Sept 9, 5-7pm (kindly RSVP)

The Charles B. Wang Center proudly presents the work of British artist and explorer Gareth Fuller, whose decades of walking across cities and landscapes have inspired intricate, hand-drawn “maps of the mind.” Blending geography, culture, history, and personal experience, Fuller’s maps capture the layered identities of places while transforming walking into a way of knowing and drawing into a way of remembering. Visitors are invited to explore these evocative works and reimagine the landscapes we inhabit.

CHINA INSTITUTE GALLERY

Courtesy China Institute of America

China Institute Gallery at 60: 1966-2026
September 10, 2026 – January 3, 2027
Curator’s Talk | Strolling Together in the World of Chinese Art: Tuesday, Sept 15, 2026, 6:30-8pm
AWNY Open House: Thursday, Sept 17, with free admission and light refreshments

Founded in 1966, the China Institute Gallery has presented the history of Chinese art from antiquity to the present through original and thought-provoking exhibitions. The masterworks featured in China Institute Gallery at 60: 1966-2026, date from the 11th century BCE to the 21st, and exemplify what has made the Institute’s exhibitions groundbreaking. Through displays of fine jades, bronze vessels, paintings of gardens and trees as well as calligraphy, architecture, Buddhist sculpture, Chinese ceramics, and clay burial figures, China Institute Gallery at sixty will demonstrate how its presentations have consistently illuminated pathways to a deeper understanding of the arts of China. The exhibition features approximately 85 pieces on loan from more than thirty institutions and private collectors.

THE KOREA SOCIETY

Image courtesy the Artists

Afterlayers: Tai Hwa Goh & Julia Kwon
September 17 – December 4, 2026
Opening Reception: Thursday, Sept 17, 5-7pm

The Korea Society presents Afterlayers: Tai Hwa Goh & Julia Kwon this autumn, bringing together two artists who transform traditional Korean materials—paper and textiles—to explore identity, memory, and cultural hybridity. Goh creates intricate, layered paper installations that blur the boundaries between nature, memory, and lived experience, while Kwon reimagines the traditional Korean bojagi to challenge assumptions about identity, femininity, and cultural authenticity. Together, their works offer a thought-provoking dialogue between tradition and contemporary life.

JAPANESE ART SOCIETY OF AMERICA

HISHIKAWA MORONOBU (1618?–1694), The Pleasures of Edo; Handscroll; ink, color, and silver and gold pigments on silk, 13⅞ x 337 in. (35.2 x 8.55.7m); ca. Early Genroku era (ca. 1688–1694) Unsigned

Inaugural Ukiyo-e Lecture: Hishikawa Moronobu’s Floating World
Thursday, September 10, 2026 at 5pm
Japan Society | 333 E 47th Street, NYC

Thanks to the generous support of Sebastian Izzard, the Japanese Art Society of America is launching an annual lecture series on Ukiyo-e, beginning with an inaugural lecture by Professor Matthew McKelway. Explore the fascinating world of Hishikawa Moronobu, often considered the founder of Ukiyo-e, through a look at his career and recently discovered handscrolls depicting the Yoshiwara, theaters, and leisure activities of Edo. The lecture offers a rare opportunity to discover new insights into one of the most influential artists of the “floating world.” The lecture is free and open to all, with in-person and Zoom attendance available. Refreshments will follow. To register in-person, click here.  To register by Zoom, click here.

KOREAN CULTURAL CENTER NY

Courtesy Korean Cultural Center New York

Tchah Sup Kim: The Key to a New World
September 17 – October 24, 2026

Tchah Sup Kim (1940–2022) was an artist whose lifelong practice explored fundamental questions of civilization, the universe, existence, and humanity. Moving beyond formal experimentation, his work sought new ways of seeing and understanding the world—often by challenging established boundaries between East and West, the individual and the cosmos, and the finite and the infinite.

THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

Tao Hong (Chinese, active ca. 1610–1640s), Riverside village, 1638. One leaf from an album of seven leaves. Image: 9 3/4 × 10 1/2 in. Promised gift of Julia and John Curtis; Courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art

City of Memory: Nanjing in the Seventeenth Century
June 27, 2026 – January 3, 2027

City of Memory: Nanjing in the Seventeenth Century explores how artists lived and worked in this charged environment in the decades before and after the fall of the Ming dynasty. Through a selection of about 100 objects, mostly from The Met collection, the exhibition illuminates both the city’s lore and complex history as well as the evolution of Nanjing painting from the 1640s to the 1680s, introducing key figures, genres, and styles.

Decorative Arts in China, 1000 to the Present
July 25, 2026 – Ongoing

Uncover the overlooked essence of decorative arts in China. This exhibition featuring over 100 works mainly from The Met collection, highlights the superb aesthetic achievement and deep cultural significance of so-called “decorative arts.” Departing from the usual presentation style that focuses on the material or dates of objects, this cross-medium display explores evolving tastes across different social strata, reflects artistic virtuosity, and deepens our understanding of Chinese cultural traditions.

A Lasting Legacy: Chinese Jades from New York Collections
July 25, 2026 – Ongoing

Revered in China for thousands of years, jade has long been prized for its beauty and the virtues its qualities symbolize, including benevolence, humility, and integrity. Featuring 50 works from The Met alongside pieces from pioneering collector Heber R. Bishop, this exhibition explores the enduring fascination with Chinese jade and its evolving appreciation in America.

Flip Sides: Seeing Korean Art Anew
March 16, 2026 – May 31, 2027

Flip Sides: Seeing Korean Art Anew invites viewers to look beyond the “best” angle, revealing hidden interiors, reverses, and intricate details. Featuring approximately 50 works from The Met collection, more than half on view for the first time, the exhibition offers fresh perspectives on Korean traditions and the construction and function of works in metal, wood, ceramic, textiles, and lacquer.

RUBIN MUSEUM OF HIMALAYAN ART

Courtesy Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art

The Rubin Museum Distinguished Lecture in Himalayan Art at The Met
Tuesday, September 15, 2026, 6-7pm
The Met Fifth Avenue | Bonnie Bonnie J. Sacerdote Lecture Hall, Ruth and Harold D. Uris Center for Education

Join the Rubin’s third annual lecture at The Met Fifth Avenue on Tuesday, September 15, featuring Sanskritist and scholar of South Asian art and cultures Gautama V. Vajracharya. In “Flowering Trees and Beauties in Nepalese Art,” Vajracharya explores the ongoing scholarly debate surrounding the salanbhanjika—a young woman standing atop a human figure beneath a flowering tree—and shares his research into this enduring iconography across Sanskrit, Pali, and Newari sources. Free and open to the public, with advance registeration recommended. Space is limited, and priority will be given to those who register.
Mandala Lab at the New York Botanical Garden
Saturday, September 19, 2026, 11am or 1pm
New York Botanical Garden

This 90-minute immersive Mandala Lab Workshop draws on Tibetan Buddhist art and its powerful universal teachings, inviting participants to explore their emotions through five playful and thought-provoking experiences. Presented as part of NYBG’s 1960s-inspired exhibition Flower Power, it marks the Rubin’s first Mandala Lab Workshop in New York City. Register here.

Ono Hakuko (1915-1996), Large five-sided vase with translucent turquoise glaze, ca. 1980s, glazed porcelain with underglaze gold leaf, 12 1/4 x 9 7/8 in.

Don’t miss the chance to explore two exceptional online exhibitions from Joan B Mirviss LTD, celebrating the artistry and innovation of two distinguished Japanese ceramic artists. Kawase Shinobu: Endless Expressions in Clay showcases the artist’s masterful exploration of form, texture, and color, while Ono Hakuko: A Golden Touch highlights the luminous beauty and distinctive artistry of her work. Explore both exhibitions online before they close September 4!

Ono Hakuko: A Golden Touch
Closing Friday, September 4, 2026
Online only

Ono Hakuko (1915–1996) was a pioneering Japanese woman ceramist of the twentieth century, having successfully broken into the male-dominated world of clay at a time when it was almost unheard of for a woman to do so. After mastering the exceptionally difficult yūri-kinsai (gold leaf underglaze) technique from Living National Treasure Katō Hajime (1900–1968), Ono dedicated her artistic career to refining the technique according to her own aesthetics. She created her mesmerizing, often geometric designs by carefully arranging gold leaf on the vessel’s surface before applying clear or lightly colored translucent overglaze. This process allowed her to create works with a remarkable degree of depth—her gold leaf patterns shimmer through layers of glass-like surface. In 1980, she was only the second woman to receive the prestigious Japan Ceramic Society Award. Such was her mastery that she could have conceivably become the first female Living National Treasure. Ono’s acceptance into the man’s world of clay at that time helped pave the way for future generations of talented women artists.

Featuring six of the artist’s captivating works, Ono Hakuko: A Golden Touch offers a unique opportunity to revel in the rich luminosity of Ono’s masterful gold leaf underglaze technique.

To view the exhibit online, click here.

 

Kawase Shinobu, Tall single-stem vase with bulbous base, 2025, unglazed stoneware, 11 3/8 x 6 3/4 in.

Kawase Shinobu: Endless Expressions in Clay
Closing Friday, September 4, 2026
Online only

Long considered the reigning master of celadon in Japan, Kawase Shinobu (b. 1950) is known for his unique array of astonishingly jade-like glazes that adorn his effortlessly elegant ceramic forms. Kawase’s success in this challenging medium can be attributed in part to his enduring commitment to experimentation. He has regularly taken sabbaticals from celadon to create works in other styles. Over the course of his career, Kawase has mastered a range of techniques, including Chinese-style marbleized clay, charcoal firing, and ladle-poured matte glazing. During his most recent sabbatical last year, Kawase created a deeply personal body of unglazed vessels and Ido-style teabowls using clay from his wife’s family rice field.

In Kawase Shinobu: Endless Expressions in Clay, they are delighted to feature the artist’s iconic celadon works alongside works from three of his sabbatical periods.

To view the exhibit online, click here.

Kaori Someya, Pictures of Seasonal Changes in Dress (left screen), 2026, pair of two-panel folding screens: gold leaf, silver leaf, mineral pigments, dye, washi paper, and animal glue, H70 7/8 x W141 3/4 x D3/4 in. overall (H180 x W360 x D2 cm overall). Photo: Copyright The Artist

Kaori Someya: The Light Within
September 10 – October 17, 2026
Opening Reception with Artist: Thursday, Sept 10, 5-8pm (kindly RSVP)
Artist Talk: Saturday, Sept 12, 1:30-3pm (kindly RSVP)
35 N Moore Street, NYC

On the occasion of Autumn Asia Week New York, Ippodo Gallery is pleased to present Kaori Someya: The Light Within, the Nihonga painter’s debut solo exhibition, on view from September 10 through October 17, 2026.

Someya’s paintings apply the thousand-year-old technique of urahaku, or the backing of transparent washi paper with gold and platinum leaf, instilling her paintings with an inner radiance. Someya uses the traditional medium of Nihonga as a way to explore the complex existence of women in contemporary Japanese society, depicting female figures in vibrantly patterned traditional kimono, their expressions caught between serenity and resignation. In doing so, Someya works to explore the tension women face between external societal pressures and the internal desire to preserve one’s beliefs and identity.

Someya’s themes of impermanence, memory, transformation, and the eternal shifting dance of light are expressed as changing seasons and unfixed shadows. Vibrantly patterned kimono tell hidden stories of the characters. Kimono patterns derived from her late mother’s handwork recur as depictions of “life backgrounds” — interior worlds made visible. Employing ijidōzuhō, the classical Japanese technique of rendering multiple moments within a single continuous scene, she imbues intense emotion—grief and renewal— into sweeping still images.

They are delighted to welcome Kaori Someya to New York to celebrate her debut solo exhibition at the gallery. In addition to joining the opening reception on September 10, Someya will give a special artist talk that Saturday, offering insights into her Nihonga painting process and her exploration of themes of gender and society. They look forward to welcoming you to the exhibition and sharing this special presentation of Someya’s luminous work with you during Autumn Asia Week New York!

To RSVP to the reception, click here and to RSVP to the artist talk, click here.

To learn more, click here.

Pair of Canton Enamel Dishes, ca. 1730s, diam: 6¼ in. (16 cm)

Exhibition of Chinese Porcelains and Works of Art in both Chinese and Western Taste
September 10–18, 2026
16 East 52nd Street, 10th Fl, NYC
Special AWNY Hours: 10am-6pm, with limited hours on Sept 11 and closed Sept 12–13

Ralph M. Chait Galleries, Inc. is delighted to present Exhibition of Chinese Porcelains and Works of Art in Both Chinese and Western Taste as part of this autumn’s Asia Week New York. Bringing together exceptional works, many from distinguished American private collections, the exhibition offers a fascinating look at the dialogue between Chinese artistic traditions and Western taste.

Highlights include a rare pair of Kangxi-period (1662–1722) blue-and-white phoenix-tail vases, as well as an exceptionally rare pair of 18th-century Chinese export porcelain figures of a gentleman and lady. Beautifully painted in famille rose enamels and dressed in distinctly Chinese-inspired attire, the figures offer a captivating glimpse into the cultural exchange that shaped Chinese export art.

They look forward to welcoming you soon!

To learn more, click here.

Kiyomizu Rokubey VIII 八代 清水 六兵衞 (b. 1954), Remnants of Heat 26-E, 熱の痕跡, 2026

Kiyomizu Rokubei: 250 Years of Ceramic Expression from Kyoto
September 10–24, 2026
18 East 64th Street, Ste 1F, NYC

On the occasion of Autumn AWNY September 2026, Dai Ichi Arts, Ltd. is delighted to present a landmark exhibition celebrating eight generations of the distinguished Kiyomizu ceramic family of Kyoto, whose artistic legacy spans from the Edo period to the present. Bringing together works by the fifth through eighth generations of the Kiyomizu Rokubei dynasty, the exhibition traces more than two centuries of innovation, experimentation, and artistic renewal.

Based in Kyoto since the mid-Edo period, the family is the progenitor of Kiyomizu ware, and an important part of the history of Kyo-yaki, or Kyoto ware. the Rokubei family has sustained its character through continual ceramic reinvention across generations, from creating historical tea wares to creating objects of intrinsic artistic expression. As the sixth Rokubei observed, “This family has endured because each generation has worked in its own way.”

Across the exhibition, visitors will encounter the individuality of four generations of the ceramic dynasty. From the fifth Rokubei’s synthesis of classical Japanese and Chinese ceramics, Western-inspired glazes, and modern design, to the sixth generation’s richly varied decorative surfaces and the seventh and eighth generations’ refined engagement with architecture, line, and nature.

The seventh Rokubei, originally trained in architecture and metal casting, introduced a radical sculptural language based on slab construction, apertures, cuts, and the expressive movement of clay during firing.

The current eighth-generation artist Kiyomizu Rokubei, Masahiro, extends this legacy through his study of architecture and history. He has conceived forms that bend, warp, and shift under gravity and heat. Reflective lusters and deep black glazes further activate the surrounding space, placing his work firmly within contemporary ceramic practice.

This important exhibition reveals a tradition defined by a multigenerational spirit of continuous innovation.

They look forward to welcoming you this fall!

To preview the exhibition catalog, click here.

To learn more, click here.