Special 110th Anniversary Exhibition
Okuda Gensō and the Nitten Masters:
From Fukuda Heihachirō to Higashiyama Kaii

　

23 April (Sat.)– 3 July (Sun.) 2022
(Closed on Mondays, except for 2 May.)

Hours: 10 am - 5 pm (Last admission at 4:30 pm)

Admission Fees: Adults: 1,300 yen; university and high school students: 1,000 yen; middle school and younger children: free of charge;
Disability ID holders and one person accompanying them: 1,100 yen
*Discount for those who are wearing kimono: Discount of 200 yen for adults

Organized by: Yamatane Museum of Art and The Asahi Shimbun Company.

Highlights of the Exhibition

Okuda Gensō

Rainy Mountain. Color on Silk, Showa Period, 1975; Yamatane Museum of Art

Matsushima at Dusk. Color on Silk, Showa Period, 1976; Yamatane Museum of Art

A Poet's Poem; the Theme: Sound. Ink and Color on Gold-Leafed Silk, Showa Period, 1981; Yamatane Museum of Art

The Four Seasons in Japan [Calligraphy]. Ink on Paper, Showa Period, 1983; Yamatane Museum of Art

Spring Landscape on a Lake Shore. Color on Silk, Showa Period, 1986; Yamatane Museum of Art

Matsuoka Eikyū, A Stay in Yamashina: Scenes from the Tale of Times Now Past: Taking Shelter from the Rain and a Visit to Yamashina. Color on Silk, Taisho Period, 1918; Yamatane Museum of Art

Fukuda Heihachirō, Bamboo Shoots. Color on Silk, Showa Period, 1947; Yamatane Museum of Art

Yamaguchi Hōshun, Peonies. Color on Paper, Showa Period, 1957; Yamatane Museum of Art

Kodama Kibō, Mont Blanc. Ink on Silk, Showa Period, 1957; Yamatane Museum of Art

Hashimoto Meiji, Moonlight Night. Color on Paper, Showa Period, 1959; Yamatane Museum of Art

Higashiyama Kaii, Autumn Colors. Color on Paper, Showa Period, 1986; Yamatane Museum of Art

Sugiyama Yasushi, In the Sunshine. Color on Paper, Showa Period, 1976; Yamatane Museum of Art

Takayama Tatsuo, Seated Man. Color on Paper, Showa Period, 1972; Yamatane Museum of Art

Satō Taisei, A Pure Note. Color on Paper, Showa Period, 1947; Yamatane Museum of Art

Approximately 50 works in total are to be displayed.

Exhibition Overview

To commemorate the 110th anniversary of the birth of Okuda Gensō (1912-2003), a leader in the postwar nihonga art world, we are pleased to present an exhibition introducing his work and the work of other painters who also showed in the Nitten (Japan Fine Arts Exhibition), which was his main platform. Gensō was born in Hiroshima and moved to Tokyo at the age of seventeen to study with Kodama Kibō, a nihonga artist also from Hiroshima who was a distant relative. In 1936, his work was accepted for the first time in the Bunten (Ministry of Education Exhibition), the predecessor of the Nitten. He repeatedly showed in the New Bunten (Ministry of Education Exhibition, a wartime special exhibition) and the Nitten, becoming a Nitten juror and eventually its chairman. Initially his work was focused on paintings of the human figure, but when forced to evacuate back to his home town in 1944, his experience there inspired him to produce landscape paintings. After the war, he established his distinctive style of landscape painting, depicting the magnificence of nature with the color that came to be known as “Gensō’s red” as his base note. An excellent waka poet as well, he was chosen in 1981 as an advisor for the Imperial New Year’s Poetry Reading.

This exhibition includes Gensō’s Scarlet Mountain in a Mist, with its striking use of Gensō’s red, and two large-scale works he addressed in his seventies, Oirase Ravine: Autumn and Oirase Ravine: Spring,☆ being exhibited concurrently. They are joined by a work with a waka poemfrom the Imperial New Year ’s Poetry Reading inscribed in it.

Reflecting upon the history of the official exhibitions since the Bunten and the Teiten (Imperial Art Exhibition), the Nitten’s predecessors, this exhibition also presents paintings by Fukuda Heihachirō, who was active in the Teiten period, and work Kawai Gyokudō showed in the first Nitten. It also includes paintings by Kodama Kibō, Gensō’s teacher, and “the Nitten’s Three Mountains,” Higashiyama Kaii, Sugiyama Yasushi, and Takayama Tatsuo (all of whom have yama, “mountain,” in their names). They are joined by Yamaguchi Hōshun, Yamaguchi Kayō, and many other distinguished painters who showed in the Nitten. Through this body of work, the exhibition traces the achievements of the acclaimed artists who led the nihonga art world in the twentieth century.

* Works are the property of the Yamatane Museum of Art, except for works with ☆ marks.