Special Exhibition Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Yamatane Museum of Art
The Destruction and Creation of Nihonga
- Hayami Gyoshū: A Retrospective

Dancing in the Flames
[Important Cultural Property],
Color on Silk, Taishō Period, 1925,
Yamatane Museum of Art

8 October – 4 December, 2016
(Closed on 11 Oct., and on Mondays, except for 10 Oct.)

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

Admission Fees: Adults: 1,200 [1,000] yen; university and high school students: 900 [800] yen; middle school and younger children: free of charge
*Figures in brackets are for groups of 20 or more, advance tickets, repeaters with used tickets, and those who are wearing kimono.
*Disability ID holders and one person accompanying them are admitted free of charge.

Organized by: Yamatane Museum of Art and Nikkei Inc.

Organized by: SMBC FRIEND SECURITIES CO., LTD.

Approximately 80 masterpieces of Hayami Gyoshū from Yamatane Collection and other collections are on display during the above period.

Highlights of the Exhibition

※All works are created by Hayami Gyoshū.

Section 1 : The Start: Out of Painting School

A Suitor's Trials, Color on Silk, Taishō Period, 1913, Yamatane Museum of Art

Young Foliage, Color on Silk, Taishō Period, 1912, Tokyo National Museum (On display 10/8 – 11/6)

A Bonfire (Autumn Morning), Color on Silk, Taishō Period, 1913, Reiyūkai Myōichi Collection

A Paper-Making Village near Tokyo, Color on Silk, Taishō Period, 1914, Tokyo National Museum

Autumn in Yamashina, Color on Silk, Taishō Period, 1917, Yamatane Museum of Art

Section 2: Mastering the Depiction of Textures

Shūgakuin Village in Rakuhoku (Northern Kyoto), Color on Silk, Taishō Period, 1918, The Museum of Modern Art, Shiga (On display 10/8-11/20)

Kyoto's Maiko, Apprentice Geisha, of Kyoto, Color on Silk, Taishō Period, 1920, Tokyo National Museum (On display 11/22-12/4)

Chrysanthemums, Color on Gold-Leafed Paper, Taishō Period, 1921 (On display 11/8-12/4)

Pomegranates in a Nabeshima Ware Dish, Color on Silk, Taishō Period, 1921

Sunflowers, Color on Silk, Taishō Period, 1922, Reiyūkai Myōichi Collection

Black Bamboo, Ink on Paper, Taishō Period, 1925, Reiyūkai Myōichi Collection

Section 3: From Dancing in the Flames to Camellia Petals Scattering- Taking the Classics to New Heights

Dancing in the Flames [Important Cultural Property], Color on Silk, Taishō Period, 1925, Yamatane Museum of Art

Goby, Color on Silk, Taishō Period, 1925

Magnolia (Noble Flowers in Spring Garden), Ink on Paper, Taishō Period, 1926, Okada Museum of Art (On display 10/8 – 11/6)

Emerald Mosses and Verdant Turf, Color on Gold-Leafed Paper, Shōwa Period, 1928, Yamatane Museum of Art

Red Plum Blossoms and White Plum Blossoms, Color on Silk, Shōwa Period, 1929, Yamatane Museum of Art

Camellia Petals Scattering [Important Cultural Property], Color on Gold Ground on Paper, Shōwa Period, 1929, Yamatane Museum of Art

Section 4: A Trip to Europe and New Challenges after Returning to Japan
― Experiencing Europe

Sampans in Penang, Color on Silk with Goldleaf on the Reverse, Shōwa Period, 1931, Hasegawa Machiko Art Museum

Ruins of Olympia, Color on Paper, Shōwa Period, 1931, Yamatane Museum of Art

― Rendering the Human Figure

Beside the Flowers, Color on Paper, Shōwa Period, 1932, Kabuki-za Corporation

― New Developments in Bird-and-Flower Paintings

Black Peonies, Ink and Color on Paper, Shōwa Period, 1934

Round Moon (Last Work), Color on Silk, Shōwa Period, 1935, Reiyūkai Myōichi Collection

Bonsai of Plum Tree (Unfinished Work), Color on Silk, Shōwa Period, 1935, Felix M. Bush Collection

Exhibition Overview

In the 2016 Yamatane Museum of Art celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of its founding. It opened in July of 1966 as Japan’s first museum dedicated to Nihonga, based on the collection of Yamazaki Taneji (1893-1983), founder of Yamatane Securities (now SMBC Friend Securities Co., Ltd.). Taneji, acting on his conviction that “What is transmitted through a painting is the artist's humanity,” built close friendships with artists while collecting their works.

Hayami Gyoshū (1894-1935), a Nihonga artist active from the late Meiji to the early Shōwa periods, died quite young; while he and Taneji were contemporaries--with just a year’s difference in age--they never actually met. Taneji loved Gyoshū’s work, however, acquired it at every opportunity, and took pleasure in displaying Gyoshū paintings in his home’s tokonoma alcove. In 1976, the Yamatane Museum of Art acquired 105 paintings by Gyoshū from the Ataka Collection, bringing its Gyoshū holdings to a total of 120 works. Since then, we have been nicknamed the “Gyoshū Museum.” This exhibition, commemorating our museum’s fiftieth anniversary, presents our Gyoshū collection, in a sense our most familiar face. With major Gyoshū works from each period from other collections as well, this exhibition offers a retrospective on his career built from 80 works.

"The courage to climb to the top of the ladder is noble, while those who climb down from the perch and then climb back up it are all the more noble." Those words summarize the forty years of Gyoshū’s brief life, during which he kept climbing towards the challenging goal of innovating in Nihonga, striving to achieve a new mode of expression.

This exhibition begins with Gyoshū’s student years, when he was influenced by Imamura Shikō, a more senior student at their painting school, and continues with his pursuit of realism, inspired by the Western-style artist Kishida Ryūsei, by Western painting, and by Song dynasty bird-and-flower painting in the style associated with the Imperial Court Academy. It explores his attempt to define a new Nihonga, in paintings from his masterpiece, Dancing in the Flames [Important Cultural Property] on. It also presents his rendering of the human figure, on which he concentrated after a stay in Europe, and the ink bird-and-flower paintings of his last years. Spanning his entire career, this exhibition, bringing together works from our own and other collections for the first time in twenty-three years, is a major Gyoshū retrospective and a remarkable opportunity to experience his courageous, creative career.

Shūgakuin Village in Rakuhoku (Northern Kyoto), Color on Silk, 1918, The Museum of Modern Art, Shiga (On display 10/8-11/20)

Image: TNM Image Archives Kyoto's Maiko, Apprentice Geisha, of Kyoto, Color on Silk, 1920, Tokyo National Museum (On display 11/22-12/4)

Chrysanthemums, Color on Gold-Leafed Paper, 1921 (On display 11/8-12/4)

Pomegranates in a Nabeshima Ware Dish, Color on Silk, 1921

Sunflowers, Color on Silk, 1922, Reiyūkai Myōichi Collection

Black Bamboo, Ink on Paper, 1925, Reiyūkai Myōichi Collection

Emerald Mosses and Verdant Turf, Color on Gold-Leafed Paper, 1928, Yamatane Museum of Art

Camellia Petals Scattering [Important Cultural Property], Color on Gold Ground on Paper, 1929, Yamatane Museum of Art

Beside the Flowers, Color on Paper, 1932, Kabuki-za Corporation

Black Peonies, Ink and Color on Paper, 1934 Yamatane Museum of Art

Round Moon (Last Work), Color on Silk, 1935, Reiyūkai Myōichi Collection