UPCOMING TALK: Joseph S. and Ethel B. Atha Lecture
Hokusai in America: The Formation of a Collection
Thursday, October 17, 2024, 6-7pm
Atkins Auditorium
Tickets: $12 Public | $10 Members
How did Hokusai’s Great Wave reach the shores of Boston and sweep across America? Dr. Sarah E. Thompson introduces the eccentric art lovers who built the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston’s monumental Japanese collection — the largest holdings of Japanese art outside of that country. Then, Yayoi Shinoda (Nelson-Atkins Assistant Curator of Japanese Art) joins Thompson to discuss the MFA Boston’s Japanese collection as a model for museums across America.
Thompson is Curator of Japanese Art at the MFA Boston where she has served since 2004. She has curated numerous exhibitions, including Hokusai: Waves of Inspiration from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, currently on view at the Nelson-Atkins through Jan. 5, 2025.
To learn more and reserve tickets, click here.
ASIA WEEK NEW YORK AUTUMN 2024 EXHIBITION
Katsushika Hokusai (Japanese, 1760–1849). Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa‑oki nami‑ura), also known as the Great Wave, from the series Thirty‑six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei), about 1830–1831, Tenpō Era (1830–1844), woodblock print (nishiki‑e), ink and color on paper, 9 15/16 × 14 13/16 in.; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, William Sturgis Bigelow Collection; Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Hokusai: Waves of Inspiration from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
September 21, 2024 – January 05, 2025
Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) is one of the most famous Japanese artists in history, thanks largely to his instantly recognizable print known familiarly as the Great Wave. Hokusai: Waves of Inspiration features work from his own expansive and versatile career as well as objects in many different media by the generations of artists that he inspired.
Waves of Inspiration features roughly 100 works of art by Hokusai himself, highlighting the breadth of subjects the artist tackled — including actors, landscapes, still life, supernatural legends and tales, and wildlife — as well as roughly 200 additional works by the artist’s teachers, family, students, rivals, and worldwide admirers. The exhibition traces Hokusai’s artistry to unexpected places across time, place, and medium and shows how he defined, reinvented, and elevated every art form he engaged with.
Accompanying this exhibit is a host of public programs; to learn more, click here.
Katsushika Hokusai (Japanese, 1760–1868). Mitsui Shop at Surugachō from the series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, ca. 1831. Woodblock print; ink and color on paper. 10 1/8 x 15 inches. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust, 32-72/23.
Hokusai: Masterpieces from the Spencer Museum of Art, the Richardson-North Collection, and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
September 21, 2024 – February 1, 2025
Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) is one of the most creative and versatile artists in the history of Japanese art. Drawn from extensive collections in the Kansas City area, Hokusai: Masterpieces from the Spencer Museum of Art, the Richardson-North Collection, and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art introduces Hokusai’s enduring paintings and prints in the context of Hokusai’s time.
To learn more, click here.
Rubbing of Ritual Disc with Dragon Motifs (Bi) (detail), China, 19th-early 20th c., hanging scroll, ink on paper, 14 5/16 in (36.35 cm); Bequest of Laurence Sickman, F88-45/110
The Art of Ink Rubbings: Impressions of Chinese Culture
July 20, 2024 – February 2, 2025
As early as 600 C.E., scholars and collectors commissioned ink rubbings to preserve ancient inscriptions carved on stone or bronze. Advances in ink and paper in the 1200s spurred more refined production, and rubbings were soon regarded as works of art in their own right. In the 1800s, artists created many sophisticated rubbings from bronzes, jades, and sculptures to revitalize the appreciation of antique objects.
Due to its simplicity, beauty, and affinity to important historical objects, ink rubbings’ popularity endured despite advances in other reproductive media. In the 1930s, future Nelson-Atkins director Laurence Sickman (1907–1988) amassed an extensive collection of ink rubbings and, with other collectors, introduced Chinese ink rubbings to a global audience.
This exhibition features more than 25 rubbings, as well as some of the original objects, and offers a window into the remarkable practice, variety, and allure of Chinese ink rubbing.
To learn more, click here.
Sonam Dolma Brauen, My Father’s Death
October 28, 2023 – November 11, 2024
Personal biographies, political histories, and Tibetan Buddhist beliefs and practices inform Sonam Dolma Brauen’s sculpture My Father’s Death (2010). Born in 1953 in Tibet, Sonam and her family fled their homeland when she was a child. Assembled with robes donated by Tibetan monks and tsa tsas, molded objects used as votive offerings, My Father’s Death commemorates Sonam’s own father, Tsering Dhondup, who died a few years after the family came to India as refugees.
The exhibition pairs Sonam’s work with Buddhist sculptures from Nepal and Tibet, offering visitors the opportunity to contemplate how concepts of consecration, relics, and commemoration are explored in Buddhist art and ritual practices across time.
This exhibition is generously sponsored in Kansas City by Lilly Endowment, Inc., Evelyn Craft Belger and Richard Belger, and the Fondation Foyer.
To learn more, click here.
