The Japanese Art Society of America (JASA) promotes the study and appreciation of Japanese art. Founded in 1973 as the Ukiyo-e Society of America by collectors of Japanese prints, JASA’s mission has expanded to include related fields of Japanese art. Through its annual lectures, seminars and other events, the Society provides a dynamic forum in which members can exchange ideas and experiences with experts about traditional and contemporary arts of Japan.
Help Us Celebrate 50 Years of JASA!
After a highly successful run at the Asia Society Museum in New York last year and the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago in the spring, JASA’s 50th anniversary exhibition, Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan, will be view at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, from July 7 through September 15. Learn more about it at the MFAH’s website. One review called Meiji Modern a “perfect exhibition,” engaging both scholars and non-specialist visitors who are “thrilled to discover beautiful art they didn’t know and to learn its history in labels that are both clear and serious.”
JASA’s beautiful 272-page full-color catalog for the exhibition (cover above) takes a fresh look at the art of the Meiji period (1868-1912) through approximately 200 objects drawn from public and private collections across the United States, including newly discovered prints, photographs, textiles, paintings and craft objects. Copies of the catalog can be ordered through the JASA Store or our mail-in Publications Order Form.
JASA has embarked on a major capital campaign. Our goal is to raise a total of $2.5 million to help secure our future as the premier membership organization in North America dedicated to the arts and culture of Japan. We have already raised a substantial portion to cover the costs of the Meiji Modern exhibition. However, we also need your help to secure additional funds to support Impressions, JASA programming and scholarship in Japanese art history. Download our Securing Our Future brochure here and watch the video here to learn more about this important initiative and how you can be part of building JASA’s exciting future!
Meet JASA’s New President: Victoria Melendez
Impressions recently met with Victoria Melendez, elected the society’s president in 2024, in the galleries of the Department of Arms and Armor at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where we had just viewed an onsite presentation of Japanese swordsmanship. While she is well-known to many JASA members and fellow collectors, we invited Victoria to share some of her background and views on collecting Japanese art.
We are delighted to speak with you about your new leadership role with JASA. Members look forward to getting to know you better and to working with you. To begin our short conversation, please tell us about your early years. Where were you born? Where did you grow up, go to school?
I was born and raised in New York City. I attended the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, where I focused on painting and drawing.
Were your parents both interested Japan, or in art? What interested you as a child?
My parents were both interested in art, such as painting and ancient art, and when I was a child often took me to museums, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Rather than Japan, they were more interested in Spain and Latin America, probably because my father was from Colombia and my mother was a Spanish teacher.
Read our complete conversation with Victoria Melendez here.
September JASA Events
JASA members are invited to a connoisseurship event hosted by Bonhams auction house in New York on Saturday, September 14, at 2 p.m. The Japanese Galleries event will focus on the appreciation of fine ukiyo-e woodblock prints, with Bonhams expert consultant Gary Levine, Head of Department Jeff Olson and specialist Philip Hafferty. No fee or registration is required.
On Wednesday, September 25, at 5 p.m., join us online for Pigments of the Imagination, a live Zoom presentation by Scottish multidisciplinary artist Paul Binnie, who works in the tradition of Japanese woodblock printing, particularly shin-hanga. Paul will speak about his early training as a painter in Scotland and then as a woodblock printmaker in Japan in the 1990s. Click here to register for the Zoom event: Sept 25 webinar.
Also, September 25 is the deadline to sign up for our October 8 members-only event, an in-person tour of The Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition Collecting Inspiration: Edward C. Moore at Tiffany & Co., with Dr. Monika Bincsik. Click here to register.
For details of these and upcoming events, visit our JASA-Sponsored Events page.
For those who missed our June 13 Zoom webinar Exceptional Japanese Houses, with Naomi Pollock, the video is posted below.
JASA’s 50th anniversary exhibition, Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan, is on view at the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago from March 21 through June 9. Learn more about it at the Smart Museum of Art website, which also includes a listing of special Meiji-themed events held in conjunction with the exhibition. Visit the site often for updates and additional information.
You can also find links and details for all recorded JASA events on our Lecture Videos page.
- Impressions Earns 2024 Design Award July 15, 2024
Congratulations to JASA and Impermanent Press, our Impressions designer, for yet another award! Graphic Design USA (GDUSA) presented a 2024 American InHouse Design Award to Impermanent Press for Impressions 45 (2024), Part One of a Double Issue.
- Lecture: Exceptional Japanese Houses: Residential Design From 1945 to the Present (Naomi Pollock) June 16, 2024Exceptional Japanese Houses: Residential Design From 1945 to the Present (Naomi Pollock)
Since the Pacific War, Japanese architects have been producing some of the world’s most innovative homes. These are the subject of architect and journalist Naomi Pollock‘s new book, The Japanese House Since 1945. Spanning eight decades, this book presents the most compelling examples and highlights key developments in form, organization, material, architectural expression and family living. In this June 13, 2024, lecture, the author shared stories about the residences and the people who lived there. In the book’s Foreword, architect Tadao Ando notes: “This book … can be said to be a realistic history of post-war Japanese society, as seen through the filter of architectural design… The chain of creativity that began in the architectural world of post-war Japan remains unbroken—this book conveys that sense of hope.”
- Lecture: Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo (Dr. Andreas Marks) May 19, 2024Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo (Dr. Andreas Marks)
Our May 3, 2024, webinar was the second JASA program this spring to focus on Utagawa Hiroshige’s One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. Following the Zoom webinar featuring the Brooklyn Museum’s rare set that is currently on exhibition through August 4, 2024, noted curator and author, Dr. Andreas Marks, Mary Griggs Burke Curator of Japanese and Korean Art and Director of the Clark Center at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, discusses his newly published book, Hiroshige’s One Hundred Famous Views of Edo: The Definitive Collector’s Edition. Utagawa Hiroshige’s monumental landscape series, first published in the 1850s, is among the best-known and highly coveted group of Japanese prints. In this series, Hiroshige depicts 118 locations in and around Edo (today’s Tokyo) during the four seasons, often from hitherto obscure and unique perspectives. Hiroshige’s views were so popular that each design was reprinted many times. Some have reached iconic status.
For his study, Dr. Marks reviewed 4,700 prints from the series. Drawn from 32 different museums and private collections, the book is the first to present all deluxe versions printed that incorporate special printing features, such as like color gradation. Dr. Marks reveals that no complete set of the deluxe versions is held in a single collection today. He shows how and where Hiroshige’s ideas for each view originated with reference images, and discusses Hiroshige’s designs through the many later printed versions. With 700 images, the book is a definitive guide to understanding the complexity of Hiroshige’s great work as well as the dynamics of the Japanese print market during this period.
- Lecture: Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo April 3, 2024Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo
On view from April 5 through August 4, 2024, Brooklyn Museum’s exhibition of Hiroshige’s One Hundred Famous Views of Edo features new versions of the original views by the iconic Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, with photographs by Ȧlex Bueno of some of the contemporary sites of Hiroshige’s designs. This panel discussion, presented live on April 3, 2024, includes catalog author and historian Henry Smith, Professor Emeritus, Columbia University; Joan Cummins, Senior Curator, Asian Art, Brooklyn Museum and exhibition curator; and Ȧlex Bueno, Project Assistant and Professor, Centre for Global Education, Tokyo, who discusses photographic images in the exhibition.
- Lecture: When Zen Becomes Political: Zen and Soft/Hard Power (Dr. Frank Feltens) March 22, 2024When Zen Becomes Political: Zen and Soft/Hard Power (Dr. Frank Feltens)
As part of Asia Week 2024, JASA is presenting a special lecture, When Zen Becomes Political: Zen and Soft/Hard Power, by Frank Feltens, curator of Japanese Art at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art. Zen has been used to foster political agendas, as inspiration for activism, and as a way to go against common norms. This talk highlights distinctive moments and individuals that made Zen and its arts a part of the political discourse of their times. They showcase how Zen has been part of Japan’s hard and soft power for centuries and continued to be in the twentieth century.