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 last year at the Asia Society Museum in New York, 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. 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 a selection of 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 online 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. Thanks to the generosity of our members and supporters, we already have raised nearly one-third of this amount to fund the Meiji Modern exhibition. Won’t you help us secure the remaining $1.7 million, to support Impressions, scholarship in Japanese art history, and JASA programming? Download our Securing Our Future brochure here and watch the video below to learn more about this important initiative and how you can be part of building JASA’s exciting future!
April JASA Events
On Wednesday, April 3, JASA hels a live Zoom Webinar on Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo, the exhibition on view April 5 through August 4 at the Brooklyn Museum. This panel discussion included catalog author and historian Henry Smith of Columbia University; Joan Cummins, exhibition curator; and Ȧlex Bueno of the Centre for Global Education, Tokyo, who discussed photographic images in the exhibition. (The video is posted below.)
Then on Thursday, April 18, at 11:30 a.m. EDT, members are invited to an in-person visit to the Brooklyn Museum, led by Curator of Asian Art Joan Cummins, to view the exhibition Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo (featuring Takashi Murakami). Registration details to come.
For this and upcoming events, visit our JASA-Sponsored Events page.
For those who missed our March 20 annual meeting special lecture When Zen Becomes Political: Zen and Soft/Hard Power, with Frank Feltens, 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.
- 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.
- Lecture: Surprises in the South: Japanese Art in Alabama (Dr. Katherine Anne Paul) February 7, 2024Surprises in the South: Japanese Art in Alabama (Dr. Katherine Anne Paul)
Did you know there is another JASA? The Japan-American Society of Alabama! This is only one aspect of under-known connections between Japan and the state of Alabama. In this February 7, 2024, webinar Dr. Katherine Anne Paul, Virginia and William Spencer III Curator of Asian Art at the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama, discusses the many surprises and connections with Japanese Art in Alabama, including:
- Mobile, Alabama, native, Mary McNeil Fenollosa—co-author of Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art: An Outline History of East Asiatic Design, with her husband, Ernest Fenollosa—left her collection to the Mobile History Museum.
- In 1915, the town of Satsuma, Alabama, was named after the Japanese satsuma orange, which was successfully cultivated and grown there starting in 1878, a gift from Emperor Meiji.
- Part of the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, a Japanesque garden designed by Japanese-American architect Masaji “Buffy” Murai showcases a Japanese tea house called Toshinan, designed and installed by Kazunori Tago (eighth generation Miyadaiku from Maebashi, Japan).
- Of course, there is also the great work of Dr. Donald A. Wood at the Birmingham Museum of Art (Awardee of the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Rays) renowned for his Kamisaka Sekka: Rimpa Master—Pioneer of Modern Design exhibition and publication as well as his work with Echizen ceramics. Throughout his 30 year career Don Wood keenly acquired Japanese works for Birmingham’s collections. Many of these works, like Kasuga Shika Mandala by Rokkaku Jakusai, have fascinating Alabama histories.
- Lecture: Anxiety and Hope in Japanese Art: An Exhibition Talk with Dr. Aaron Rio January 24, 2024Anxiety and Hope in Japanese Art: An Exhibition Talk with Dr. Aaron Rio
In a time of uncertainty around the world, one singular exhibition has captured the essence of how art in Japan has marked times within its history that can offer the viewer new insights and powerful messages of hope and positive views. The show is Anxiety and Hope in Japanese Art, curated by Dr. Aaron Rio, Associate Curator of Japanese Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. His talk focuses on the third rotation of four in this year-long exhibition in the Japanese galleries of the museum, made possible by The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Foundation Fund.
The exhibition begins with sacred images from early Japan that speak to concerns about death, dying, and the afterlife or that were created in response to other uncertainties, such as war and natural disaster. The presentation then proceeds chronologically, highlighting medieval Buddhist images of paradises and hells, Zen responses to life and death, depictions of war and pilgrimage, and the role of protective and hopeful images in everyday life. In the final galleries, the exhibition’s underlying themes are explored through a selection of modern woodblock prints, garments and photographs.
- Impressions 45, Part One of a Double Issue January 12, 2024
Impressions 45 Part One (2024) features a photo tour and six essays illuminating Anxiety and Hope in Japanese Art, an exhibition at The Met until July 2024. Also in this issue is our interview with a retired art dealer in Japan, Mika Hirama. Hollis Goodall reviews the Kodōjin exhibition in Minneapolis, and Evgeny Steiner looks at the Leskowicz Collection of Hiroshige fan prints at the Guimet. (View the complete Table of Contents for Impressions 45 Part One.) Members will receive this issue in February. Additional copies can be ordered for $25 through the JASA Store or our online Publications Order Form.