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.
October JASA Events
JASA members, join us on Tuesday, October 8, at 2 p.m EDT. for an in-person tour of The Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition Collecting Inspiration: Edward C. Moore at Tiffany & Co., with curator Dr. Monika Bincsik. This exhibition, on view at the museum through October 20, reunites more than 60 Japanese decorative arts from Moore’s collection with a wide selection of works representing diverse cultures, presenting them alongside Tiffany silver created under his direction. Click here to register: October 8 visit to the MET.
On Tuesday, October 22, 5 p.m. EDT, Claudia Orenstein, Professor of Theatre at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY, will offer An Introduction to Bunraku: The Puppet Theater of Japan. This live Zoom webinar will present various aspects and history of the multidimensional art that marries exquisitely carved puppet figures, operated by teams of performers, with dramatic narration to shamisen accompaniment. Click here to register: October 22 webinar.
On Saturday, October 26, 2–4 p.m. EDT, JASA is hosting an in-person visit and panel discussion for members at the Hammond Museum and Japanese Stroll Garden in North Salem, NY, where the exhibition Making a Good Impression: Contemporary Prints from China, Korea and Japan runs until November 17. This exhibition is co-curated by Elizabeth Hammer and JASA member Allison Tolman, who will be among the participants in the panel discussion. The deadline to sign up is October 22. The fee is $30/person. Click here to register.
For details of these and upcoming events, visit our JASA-Sponsored Events page.
For those who missed our September 25 Zoom webinar Pigments of the Imagination: Woodblock Prints by Paul Binnie, the video is posted below.
You can also find links and details for all recorded JASA events on our Lecture Videos page.
- Lecture: An Introduction to Bunraku: The Puppet Theater of Japan (Dr. Claudia Orenstein) October 23, 2024An Introduction to Bunraku: The Puppet Theater of Japan (Dr. Claudia Orenstein)
On October 22, 204, Claudia Orenstein, Professor of Theatre at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY, presented this live webinar on bunraku, also known as ningyō jōruri, a multidimensional art that marries exquisitely carved puppet figures, operated by teams of performers, with dramatic narration to shamisen accompaniment. Drawing from early ritual practices and the work of medieval itinerant bards, in the Edo period, bunraku became a popular entertainment appealing to restless urban audiences with tales of love, war and personal sacrifice. Contributions of great dramatic writers like Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1724), and novelties in puppet construction, not only supported the form’s past success, but have continued to make it a unique art form admired throughout the world.
Professor Orenstein offers insights into various aspects of the tradition and the history and development of this art that is both an Important Intangible Cultural Property of Japan and listed as a UNESCO Intangible Culture Heritage of Humanity.
- Lecture: Pigments of the Imagination: Woodblock Prints by Paul Binnie September 28, 2024
On September 25, 2024, JASA hosted a webinar with Scottish multidisciplinary artist Paul Binnie, who works in the tradition of Japanese woodblock printing, particularly shin-hanga. Paul speaks about his early training as a painter in Scotland and then as a woodblock printmaker in Japan in the 1990s. He discusses the influences on his work, the changes that have taken place and the direction his work has followed over a career of more than thirty years. The presentation shows illustrations of many of his woodblock prints and a number of oil paintings to show the progress of his work from the 1990s until today.
Paul Binnie was born in Scotland in 1967, and studied art history at the University of Edinburgh and painting and etching at Edinburgh College of Art from 1985 to 1990. After taking his Master’s degree (with honors) in 1990, he moved to Paris and then in 1993 went on to Tokyo to study woodblock printmaking for almost six years. In 1998, Paul moved to London, where he set up his studio and worked for twenty years. At the end of 2018 he relocated to San Diego. Paul’s work is held in many public collections, including The Metropolitan Museum, New York; The National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, DC; The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; The British Museum, London; and The National Library of Australia, Canberra, among others.
- 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.