The exhibition "On the Cutting Edge: Contemporary Japanese Prints" celebrates a recent gift to the Library of Congress of 212 selected works from the 50th College Women's Association of Japan (CWAJ) Print Show held in Tokyo, Japan, in 2005.
Chosen from more than 800 entries by a jury of leading Japanese art curators, the works on display were donated to the Library by the artists or by their galleries. This important acquisition brings a fresh infusion of contemporary work into the Library, thereby updating its rich holdings of Japanese visual and contemporary printmaking from the Edo Period (1600-1868) forward.
On view from March 29 through June 30, 2007, in the Northwest Gallery of the Thomas Jefferson Building, the exhibition is part of a series of cultural programs planned to coincide with the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C.
Opening on March 29, 2007, during the peak of the cherry blossom season in the nation's capital, an exhibition of more than 200 contemporary Japanese prints from the 50th annual College Women's Association of Japan (CWAJ) Print Show is on display at the Library of Congress through June 30. All of the exhibited prints were recently donated to the Library of Congress, stirring memories of Japan's original gift of the cherry trees to the United States nearly a century ago as a symbol of cross-cultural friendship.
The prints for the 50th anniversary CWAJ Print Show were selected in Tokyo by a jury of four curators: Chiaki Ajioka, previously curator of Japanese Art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia; Minoru Kouno, chief curator at the Machida City Museum of Graphic Arts; Kiyoko Sawatari, senior curator at the Yokohama Museum of Art; and Katsuhiko Yokoyama, chief curator at the Nerima Art Museum. Chosen from more than 800 invited entries, 221 prints were originally on display at the 2005 print show in Tokyo. Of these, 212 were subsequently donated to the Library of Congress by the participating artists and two galleries in Japan: the Tolman Collection of Tokyo and Gallery Gado.
The idea for a collaboration between the CWAJ and the Library of Congress was sparked by conversations between the Library's Asian Division Chief Hwa-Wei Lee and his longtime friend and colleague, Frederick Harris, a renowned American artist working in Japan.
During his 2004 visit to the Library, Harris viewed examples of Japanese graphic art in its Prints and Photographs Division. Included were items that had appeared in the Library's 2001 Japanese print exhibition titled "The Floating World of Ukiyo-e: Shadows, Dreams and Substance". (See Information Bulletin, September 2001.)
At the suggestion of Harris, the Library of Congress embarked on a collaboration with CWAJ officials, including President Keiko Yoshimura and 2005 Print Show chairs Marilyn Gosling, Lindy Kerr and Motoko Inoue, and became only the third institution to acquire a traveling CWAJ Print Show exhibition. (The others were the British Museum in 1986 and the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney in 1993.) Plans were then made to commemorate this acquisition with a Library exhibition titled "On the Cutting Edge: Contemporary Japanese Prints from the 50th College Women's Association of Japan Print Show."
Japanese Hanga Tradition
Though the Library's exhibition features contemporary art dating primarily from 2003 to 2005, when viewed as a whole the show reveals many longstanding traditions and legacies of Japanese contemporary printmaking, popularly known as hanga.
Traditionally, in the Edo period (1600-1868), Japanese prints were produced by a quartet of individuals—the artist, woodcutter, printer and publisher. Shin hanga, or "New Prints," carried on this tradition, but with a greatly expanded visual vocabulary that blended traditional and modern Japanese and international artistic influences. The shin hanga movement flourished from about 1912 to the early 1940s, gathering much of its energy from publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō. Shin hanga artists such as Hashiguchi Goyō and Kawase Hasui added a distinctly modern twist to traditional Edo print subjects, including the depiction of beautiful women and famous scenic locations. Western artists such as Charles Bartlett and Elizabeth Keith also participated.
Largely concurrent with shin hanga was the sōsaku hanga or "Creative Prints" movement. It stressed the direct involvement of its artists in the creative process from initial design to finished artwork. This marked a radical break from the creative team structure that had dominated Japanese printmaking for the last several centuries. Though its seeds began in the early 1900s, this movement was particularly vital from the 1920s through the late 1950s, when the annual series of CWAJ juried print shows was launched. Many of the pioneers of the Creative Prints movement, including Un'ichi Hiratsuka, Shikō Munakata, Kōshirō Onchi and Kiyoshi Saitō, exhibited their work in the first CWAJ show.
"On the Cutting Edge"
"On the Cutting Edge: Contemporary Japanese Prints from the 50th College Women's Association of Japan Print Show" presents works by 187 artists ranging in age from 20 to 90. Four of the artists whose works are in the exhibition actually participated in the original CWAJ show in 1956: Hideo Hagiwara, Fumio Kitaoka, Takumi Shinagawa and Chizuko Yoshida. More than 30 artists participated for the first time in the anniversary show in 2005, while others have participated in CWAJ print shows over the years.
The prints in the exhibition encompass a diversity of styles, printmaking techniques and subject matter. The works are arranged on the walls in roughly alphabetical order according to each artist's family name, as they appeared when the show was on view in Japan. Toyohide Akiyama's colorful woodblock image titled "Chameleon" (2004) appears early on in the exhibition. Hanging nearby are two works, "Black Hunter" (2005, opposite) and "The First Spring Storm" (2005), by his father and teacher, Iwao Akiyama, who studied with the great Creative Prints artist Shikō Munakata.
The exhibition is filled with many of these connections between teachers and students—those working today as well as past masters. Another example is Creative Prints artist Hideo Hagiwara, whose work appears near that of one of his students, Yūji Hiratsuka.
Also in the show is the work of another of Hagiwara's students, mezzotint artist Takeshi Katori. The Library has been collecting Hagiwara's work since the 1950s. His abstract woodcut "Circus Horses" (1959) was also on display in "The Floating World of Ukiyo-e" exhibition. The CWAJ gift updates the Library's holdings of Hagiwara's prints with an outstanding new example titled "A Nebula No. 3" (1987).
Renowned painter/printmaker Tōkō Shinoda, now in her 90s, contributed two lithographs to the exhibition—one of which ("Fulfillment," 2005) appeared on the cover of the companion catalog produced by the CWAJ in 2005. Shinoda's training as a calligrapher is evident in her painterly, elegant imagery. Both prints in the exhibition (the other is "Reminiscence," 2005, above) layer broad brushstrokes of solid and transparent color with slender slashes of black and gold. Shinoda's work has been collected by museums around the world, such as the British Museum, Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
In contrast to Shinoda's spare, abstract prints is Junko Koike's charming, representational woodblock image titled "Coming of Age" (2005). It depicts a laughing young woman in a red kimono, standing with an elderly man in a Western-style suit who is also laughing. Her floor-length kimono is associated with the seijin shiki coming-of-age ceremony for women turning 20. The space behind the two people is punctuated with a confetti-like arrangement of colorful, circular seals.
Hiromitsu Takahashi, "Hongou" ("Hongo"), stencil, 2004. Prints and Photographs Division
Hiromitsu Takahashi is one of several artists in the show who reference Edo imagery and subject matter. His dynamic print "Hongou" (2005, p.69) shows a wind-blown, disheveled woman on a ladder. Though fire is not explicitly shown, the figure on the ladder recalls earlier artists' portrayals of legendary fire-starter Oshichi, a young woman who was linked to the 1682 fire in the Hongō section of Edo (now Tokyo). The story of Oshichi and the fire has been told in Japanese kabuki and puppet theater performances.
Most of the artists in the CWAJ exhibition are Japanese, but the show also includes prints by artists working in Japan who are from other parts of the world, including Australia, Brazil, China, Thailand and the United States.
Born in China, Kyoto-based artist Masao Ido is represented by his serene landscape prints, including the exquisite color woodcut titled "Tranquil Garden" (2003, p.67). Tokyo artist Michiko Hoshino creates dark, dream-like imagery in her lithographs, which are inspired by the stories of Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. Chizuko Yoshida's vibrant abstract woodcut "Rondo" (2005, p.68) has a universal appeal and energy.
One of the two prints on display by American artist Daniel Kelly pictures a thoroughly contemporary young woman. Titled "Wink" (2005, above), the work harks back to the Edo print tradition of portraying beautiful women or bijin. Kelly's subject, a woman he met in Kyoto, appears with crossed arms covered with tattoos that resemble traditional Japanese print designs and anime (animation originating in Japan) characters.
Postscript
Since its inception in 1956, the annual CWAJ Print Show has become more than a venue for contemporary Japanese creative print art. This much-anticipated international cultural event has showcased works that have in turn had a global impact on comtemporary printmaking. One can only wonder how the CWAJ print show will evolve over the next 50 years.
