JASA is pleased to provide this monthly list of selected Japanese art–related events, activities and exhibition openings from our Impressions advertisers and from museums and galleries across the country. If you wish to add an item for a future Calendar, please contact JASA Japanese Art Calendar. Important notice: By clicking on the links below, you are leaving the JASA website. JASA is not responsible for, nor do we endorse, the content on any linked external sites.

April 2026

Lectures and Events

Friday, April 3

A hybrid, one-day symposium on Dream Balloons in China and Japan will be held at the Collège de France in Paris. This symposium aims to study the speech balloon as an object of knowledge in terms of its intrinsic characteristics and its visual and broader cultural ecosystem. Contact information and virtual Zoom link : marianne.simon-oikawa@u-paris.fr.

Monday, April 13

The Japan Society will present Trey Trahan: Bridging Cultures, Building Community, a talk by founder and CEO of Trahan Architects in New Orleans. During frequent visits to Japan, Trahan developed a passion and deep reverence for Japanese art and culture. His firm is celebrated for its dedication to craft, sensitivity to landscape and innovative material applications—all influenced by Japanese tradition. His collection of Japanese art, his contacts and enthusiasm won his firm the commission for the USA Pavilion at EXPO 2025 in Osaka. For more information, click here.

Thursday, April 23, 5 p.m. EDT

JASA will present a webinar by Dr. Monika Bincsik, Diane and Arthur Abbey Curator for Japanese Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Dr. Bincsik will discuss her new exhibition, The Infinite Artistry of Japanese Ceramics, which is on view in the newly renovated Arts of Japan Galleries until August 8, 2027, in three rotations. Much of the selection is drawn from the Harry G. C. Packard Collection, presented in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of its landmark acquisition. Comprising more than four hundred artworks—including Buddhist sculptures, paintings from the medieval period through the nineteenth century, and a wide range of ceramics—the Packard Collection established the foundation of the Museum’s Japanese art holdings. The current issue of the journal Impressions, titled “Harry Packard: The Infinite Artistry of Japanese Ceramics,” and edited by Julia Meech, is dedicated to this exhibition. Click here to register for the Zoom event: April 23 Webinar.

Friday-Sunday, April 24 -26, 5 p.m. EDT

The Center for Buddhist Culture at the University of Arizona, Tucson, will hold a symposium on A Buddhist Heaven on Earth: Hangzhou Buddhism and its Historical Significance, in a hybrid format (in-person and online participation), April 24 -26. For registration, conference agenda and other information, click here.

Thursdays, April 16, 23 and 30

The Donald Keene Center at Columbia University presents a series of lectures on literature and art, in Kent Hall Room 403. Scholars and topics are as follows:

Thomas Gaubatz, Assistant Professor of Japanese Literature and Culture, Northwestern University, The Textual Townsman: Writing Urban Identity in Early Modern Japan. April 16, 6 p.m. Preregistration is required. Click here to register. Walk-ins for active CUID holders only.
Alicia Volk, Professor of Art History, University of Maryland, In the Shadow of an Empire: Art in Occupied Japan, April 23, 6 p.m. Preregistration is required. Click here to register. Walk-ins for active CUID holders only.
Rethinking “Nature” in Japanese Literature and Culture, a workshop that considers the nonhuman and natural disaster in Japanese literature and culture. Two talks in English with discussion in Japanese, April 30, 4-6:15 p.m.

1. Hanako Kinoshita, Professor of Japanese Literature, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology University of Tokyo, Nature, Reclusion, and “The Ten-Foot Square Hut” (Hōjōki), 4:10-4:50 p.m.
2. Keisuke Unno, Professor of Japanese Literature, Faculty of Education and Integrated Arts and Sciences Waseda University, “Spiritual Awakening of Non-Sentient Objects, Painting, and the Intersection of Buddhism and Animism in Medieval Japan”, 5-5:40 p.m.

Discussants: Haruo Shirane (Columbia University) and Yoshitaka Yamamoto (Yale University). Preregistration required. Click here to register. Limited seats. Walk-ins for active CUID holders only.

Thursday, April 30, 6–7:30p.m.

The Mary Griggs Burke Lecture series at Columbia University, at 807 Schermerhorn Hall, presents Tina Pang, Curator at the M+ Museum in Hong Kong, who will speak on Canton Modern: Art to Save the Nation, an important theme in their 2025 exhibition Canton Modern: Art and Visual Culture, 1900’s–1970. The exxhibition focused on three artists from Guangdong and Hong Kong who travelled to Japan in the early 1900’s to study Western painting techniques embedded in Nihonga painting that offered insight into the Western ideals and approaches to modernization the Japanese adapted during the Meiji period. Canton artist Gao Jianfu (1879-1951), his brother Gao Qifeng (1889-1933), and statesman-artist Chen Shuren (1884-1949)—later known collectively as the Lingnan School—articulated the aspirations of a generation who were aligned with the revolutionary goals of Sun-Yat-sen’s Tongmenghui (Alliance Society) and who shared the traumas of revolution, war and displacement. Collectively, their practices advocate for the agency of art and artists to shape the cultural and political worlds they inhabited. To RSVP email: mo2486@columbia.edu For more information click here.

Museum and Gallery Exhibitions

April 9–12

The IFPDA Fair at the Park Avenue Armory in New York presents 80 exhibitors from Stockholm to Singapore, with an expanded focus on drawings and a robust schedule of daily programming. JASA members and patrons are invited to attend the VIP opening on Thursday, April 9. To access their VIP Passes, guests affiliated with JASA may paste the custom code JASAVIP-26 in the coupon field when checking out from our ticketing page. Both The Tolman Collection of New York and Scholten Japanese Art will be exhibiting. For more information, click here.

April 9–12

Tai Modern is expanding beyond Santa Fe and New York. They return to EXPO Chicago 2026 with Warping Timelines: Tradition to Innovation, pairing works of accomplished bamboo artists with paintings by Jennifer Lynch, Navy Pier Festival Hall, Booth #302, with a VIP preview on Thursday, April 9.

April 16–19

At the Dallas Art Fair, Tai Modern’s focused exhibition of bamboo art will feature major works by living masters whose practice expand the boundaries between traditional craft and contemporary sculpture. For more information, click here.

April 9–23

Dai Ichi Arts opens Expressions in Clay: A Presentation of Contemporary Japanese Ceramics, online only. Works are available to view upon request.

April 13–May 1

Thomsen Gallery introduces modern Japanese painting to American viewers and collectors in screen and hanging scroll formats, featuring Yoshio Okada (b. 1934) and other modern painters at the gallery at 8 East 67th Street, New York.

April 14–September 7

The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto will open Shokkan: Material Encounters in Japanese Art. This unique exhibition, based on Akiko Takesue‘s original research, explores the connection between objects and the human sense of touch known as shokkan—a vital element in the creation and appreciation of Japanese art. The exhibition highlights more than 80 objects from the ROM collection that are paired with hands-on experiences. For more information, click here.

Ongoing Exhibits

Until April 4, 2026

Men’s Kimono: Threads of Life, Tales of Style, presented by the Center for the Study of the History of Textiles, Costumes, and Perfume, at Il Museo Di Palazzo Mocenigo, in Venice, Italy, focuses on the decorative schema in early 20th-century men’s kimono. The exhibition shows how the kimono ornamentation functions as a narrative source, offering data on Japanese art, history and social life.

Until April 5, 2026

The Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens in Delray Beach, Florida, presents The Buoyant Sculptures of Mariko Kusumoto (b. 1967), an exhibition celebrating the sustained Japanese devotion to craft. A sculptor by training, Kusumoto began to experiment with tsumami zaika, the ancient art of folding and pinching fabric. Her work is inspired by natural forms, evoking the flora and fauna of the marine world in soft pastel hues. For more information, click here.

Until April 9; until June 2, 2026

The Japan Foundation in Los Angeles continues two exhibitions: Guardians of Beringia: Kami Kamuy—a Ceramic Retrospective on Ainu, Shinto, and Native American Spirit Worlds (for more information, click here) and Manifesting Icons: The Materials and Making of Buddhist Visual Culture in Asia (for more information, click here).

Until April 12, 2026

The Honolulu Museum of Art continues Lyrically Rebellious: The Prints of Onchi Koshirō.

At The Portland Art Museum:

Until April 20, 2026

Kenji Nakahashi: Between Things; for more information, click here.
Conversations in Clay; for more information, click here.

Until November 20, 2026

Makers: The Culture of Craft; for more information click here.
Word in Flower: Arts of Buddhism; for more information, click here.

Until April 23, 2026

Galley of Contemporary Art by Garde continues Beyond Archetypes, featuring three very different artists: Chie Shimizu, sculptor; Sao Tanaka, ink painter; and Seongmin Ahu, a Korean painter using both ink and color. For more information, click here.

Until April 24, 2026

At Joan B Mirviss Ltd., their Asia Week exhibition, Six Celestials: Tomimoto, Ishiguro, Kawai, Kamoda, Okabe, & Tanaka S, continues with works that highlight how these 20th-century icons paved the way for the emergence of Japanese ceramics today. For more information, click here.

Until April 30, 2026

Industrialist Alfred Pope (1844–1913) was an early collector of Impressionist paintings and Asian arts. The Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington, CT, which showed his Impressionist collection in 2023, has organized a new exhibition The Great Wave: Japonisme at Hill-Stead that documents the family’s passion in the 19th century for things Japanese. For more information, click here.

Until May 3, 2026

Pictograms: Iconic Japanese Design is on view at the Japan House, Los Angeles. This exhibition is an exploration of how the pictograms created by the Nippon Design Center for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics became the emojis we all have on our phones today. For more information, click here.

Until May 3, 2026

Until May 24, 2026

The Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College continues Shining Prints: The Tale of Genji Reimagined in Japan.

Until June 7, 2026

At the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Monique D’Almeida, Deknatel Curatorial Fellow on Japanese Works on Paper, has organized Bunmei Kaika: Political Landscape in Early Modern and Modern Japan. With prints drawn primarily from the Vassar collections, the show explores the impact of the Edo period’s Tokugawa shogunate and the succeeding Meiji government on political thought, nation building and the dissemination of prints, from rural landscapes to urban cityscapes. For more information, click here.

Until June 28, 2026

The Spencer Museum at the University of Kansas has originated an exhibition exploring the life and art of a Japanese American artist who experienced, and recorded, a life of displacement, resilience, collaboration and creativity. Street Nihonga: The Art of Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani (1920–2012) includes painting, drawing, collage and mixed media works created between the 1980’s and 2001 as a survival strategy when he worked on the sidewalks of New York. For more information, click here.

Until July 5, 2026

The Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida, is initiating a commitment to Japanese art with That’s Entertainment: Japanese Prints and the Art of Leisure, featuring a display of prints by Utagawa Kunisada (1786–1864) and other leading artists focused on portraits of celebrated Kabuki actors in productions staged in Edo in the 19th century. Complementing the prints is a video installation re-imagining a classic Kabuki love tragedy, Shinju Trail (2018) by acclaimed video artist Tabaimo (Ayako Tabata, b. 1975). For more information, click here.

Until July 2, 2026

The new Princeton University Art Museum celebrates the work of former Princeton professor Toshiko Takaesu, the ceramicist whose works are abstract paintings in the round. For more information, click here.

Until August 23, 2026

In the Flesh: The Nude in Modern Japan is on view at the John and Mabel Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida. For more information, click here.

Until September 13, 2026

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art exhibition Deep Cuts: Block Across Cultures explores block printing across cultures from the eighth century in Asia, Europe and North America. For more information, click here.

Until September 13, 2026

Noguchi Museum, New York, presents Noguchi’s New York, an exhibition of the artist’s project models, photographs and archival materials. For more information, click here.

Until July 12, 2027

At the Seattle Art Museum, the exhibition Ash-Glazed Ceramics from Korea and Japan is on view.

Until August 8, 2027 (in three rotations)

The Japanese Galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art continues The Infinite Artistry of Japanese Ceramics, which traces ceramic production in Japan from its Neolithic origins to the vibrant contemporary art scene, curated by Monika Bincsik, Diane and Arthur Abbey Curator for Japanese Decorative Art. To accompany the exhibition, Impressions editor Julia Meech has produced a special issue of the journal featuring essays on Japanese ceramics and the Harry Packard collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has been sent to members and subscribers.

Past Events and Exhibitions

March 2026

Lectures and Events

Saturday, March 7, 11 a.m.–3 p.m. EDT

A “Hands-on Miso” event at The Noguchi Musum (9-01 33rd Rd, Astoria, NY), a collaboration with Kiyomi Tanigawa of Misomara restaurant in Brooklyn, is planned to to inform participants about the different regions and varieties of the miso fermentation process and its connection to the aging process of Noguchi’s stone sculptures.

Thursday, March 19, 6:30–8 p.m PDT

Daigo Daitoku, curator of the exhibition Pictograms: Iconic Japanese Design, and Julia Huang, Chair of the Arts and Culture Committee of the 2028 Long Beach Olympic Games, will speak about their work designing pictograms for the 2028 Olympic Games at Japan House Los Angeles.

Sunday, March 22; lecture at 11 a.m., meeting at 12 p.m. EDT

JASA is holding its annual lecture and meeting of members at Japan Society, 333 E. 47th St., New York. The lecture, We Do Not Work Alone: Kawai Kanjirō and Ceramics in Modern Kyoto, will be delivered by Meghen Jones, Professor of Art History at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. This talk explores how Kawai Kanjirō (1890–1966) and fellow Kyoto ceramic artists navigated the legacy of Kyō-yaki (Kyoto ware) amid the upheavals of mid-20th-century Japan, variously adapting and challenging its refined, colorful, literary and painterly conventions through communal practices, engagement with nature, and poetic reflections on craft and spirit. Both events can be attended in person or via Zoom. Registration is required whether attending the noon member meeting in person or via Zoom, or if attending the 11 a.m. lecture via Zoom. The in-person lecture is a free ticketed event for JASA members; contact jasa@japaneseartsoc.org for tickets. Nonmembers, please contact the Japan Society box office at (212) 715-1258. Only those with tickets will be admitted.

Thursday, March 26, 6:30–7:30 p.m EDT

Satomi Yamamoto of Waseda University will present a lecture on Iconographies of Self-sacrifice: Altruism in the Tamamushi Shrine, Pictorial Biography of Uisang, and Nine Stages of Decay at the Mary Griggs Burke Center, Columbia University, Schermerhorn Hall. This presentation will trace a continuous lineage of self-sacrifice imagery in Japanese painting that begins with the Jataka Tale paintings on the side panels of the Tamamushi Shrine (7th c., Hōryūji), and continues through the Pictorial Biography of Uisang (Karmic Origins of the Kegon Sect, 13th c., Kōsanji) to Nine Stages of Decay (late 13th–early 14th c., Kyushu National Museum). The analysis will argue that religious ideals of altruistic actions, including self-destructive ones, underlie these seemingly unrelated works. RSVP required for campus access: mo2486@columbia.edu.

March 25 deadline to register for event Wednesday–Thursday, April 8-9

Join Dr. Rhiannon Paget and collectors Charles and Robyn Citrin for two days of prints at the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, Florida. Day 1: View the extensive collection of surimono, shin hanga, and sōsaku hanga belonging to Charles and Robyn Citrin. Day 2: At the Ringling Museum, tour the Nude in Modern Japan exhibition with Dr. Paget and a special viewing of prints in Yoshida Hiroshi: Journeys through Light. Limited to 20 people. For more information and registration, email Rhiannon.Paget@ringling.org.

Asia Week Exhibitions in New York City

Ronin Gallery is showing Landscape Masters: Hokusai, Hiroshige, Hasui, and Yoshida, with iconic works spanning more than a century that traces the evolution of landscape imagery through season, atmosphere and travel, in dialogue with paintings by OZ Keisuke Yamaguchi: Conversation with Masters, works informed by ukiyo-e aesthetics, and the artist’s architectural training, that extend Japanese landscape traditions into the present. For more information, click here.

March 14–19

Ippodo Gallery will debut at TEFAF Maastricht in the Netherlands with Authentic Colors of Japan, an exhibition featuring 20 of Japan’s most distinguished contemporary artists. For more information, click here.

Opens March 19

For Asia Week, Ippodo presents Banquet of Life: Nihonga Paintings by Daisuke Nakano. An artist’s talk is on March 21.

March 19–23

Tai Modern presents Japanese Bamboo Art: Tradition and Transformation, exploring the dialogue between historical tradition and contemporary innovation in Japanese bamboo art. The show brings together works separated by generations, but rooted in tradition, at Colnaghi, 23 E. 67th St., 4th Floor, New York.

March 19–27

Eric Zetterquist Gallery will show a selection of Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean Ceramics, featuring works from the Menke Family Collection. For more information, click here.

March 19–27

At Dai Ichi Arts, Ltd., Ceramic Modernisms: New Perspectives on 20th Century Japanese Ceramics, features three key artists: Yasuhara Kimei (1906–1980), Kusube Yaichi (1897–1984) and Miyanohara Ken (1898–1977), whose works championed new expressions of art, design and beauty, and positioned Tokyo alongside Kyoto as a major center for modern artistic expression through ceramics. For more information, click here.

March 19–27

Scholten Japanese Art is celebrating its 25th silver anniversary during Asia Week. Their special show, Sterling: 25 Years in New York, will look to their past with selections from their previous 90 exhibitions, nine publications and more than 7000 prints sold to diverse museums and collectors, revealing their commitment to follow the development of woodblock prints from the early 20th century to the explosive post-war period. For more information click here.

March 19–27

Thomsen Gallery will feature modern Japanese paintings, especially Yoshio Okada (1934-2021) and other artists of the Taisho and Showa eras.

March 19–April 3

The Onishi Gallery presents leading Japanese artists including Living National Treasures. For more information, click here.

March 20–27

Sebastian Izzard presents The Pleasures of Edo: An Important Handscroll by Hishikawa Moronobu (1618?-1694), and a selection of prints and paintings, 1810- 1860. Daily 11 a.m.–5 p.m, Sunday 1–5 p.m.

March 22–23

For Asia Week, Egenhof Gallery will be at the Mark Hotel with Captivated: Cats in Japanese Prints and Paintings. The works include 19th-century classical ukiyo-e prints and drawings of beauties with cats, as well as early 20th-century ink paintings and prints that feature cats as primary subjects. For more information, click here.

Past Events and Exhibitions

January and February 2026

Lectures and Events

Wednesday, January 7 at 7–8:30 p.m. PST

The Beauty of Japanese Sculpture: Heian Period is the third session of six lectures by Michael VanHortingsveldt on Japanese sculpture at the Japan Foundation, Los Angeles, 5700 Wilshire Blvd. During the Heian Period, new aesthetics and techniques emerged that reinforced the potential of wood as a medium. Free, but registration required. For more information, and for the date of the February lecture, click here.

Tuesday, January 13 at 2 p.m. EST

JASA presents Stephen Salel, Curator of Japanese Art at the Honolulu Museum of Art, who will discuss Lyrically Rebellious: The Prints of Onchi Koshirō, the exhibition at the Honolulu Museum of Arts. The exhibition celebrates the 70th anniversary of the death of Onchi Koshirō (1891-1955), one of Japan’s first abstract artists and leader of the Sōsaku Hanga (Creative Prints) movement. For this January 13 webinar, register here.

Museum and Gallery Exhibitions

January 5–February 27

Welcoming the Year of the Horse, Joan Mirviss Ltd. presents, at her gallery and online, Playing with Tradition: Modern and Contemporary Mino, which will feature ceramics by past Mino masters such as Arakawa Toyozō, Katō Yasukage and Suzuki Osamu, complemented by works from younger emerging potters. For more information, click here.

January 23– February 1

Also look for Mirviss Ltd. at the Park Avenue Armory Winter Show 2026 with Reflections in Black and White: Japanese Art in Clay and Ink, showing a remarkable range of expression in ceramics, paintings and calligraphy. For more information, click here.

January 13– February 27

Japanese metal artists are usually men, due to the physical strength required and the ties to samurai culture. Countering that trend, Onishi Gallery presents Heated Colors, Hammered Forms: Female Metal Artists of Japan, highlighting the creativity of women working with in gold, silver, platinum, copper, lead and distinctive Japanese alloys.

January 21– February 1

Erik Thomsen will exhibit at the Park Avenue Armory Winter Show, while Golden Treasures: Japanese Gold Lacquer Boxes continues at their gallery until February 6.

February 21–22; February 28–March 1

In Switzerland, Thomsen Gallery will participate at Maze Art Gstaad, February 19-22, and at Maze Art St. Moritz, February 28–March 1.

January 22– February 5

Daiichi Arts presents Memories of a House, a solo exhibition by the internationally acclaimed Kyoto-based potter Hayashi Yasuo (b. 1928), who is an important pioneer in abstraction in contemporary Japanese ceramics. In his youth, Hayashi was a founding member of Shiko-kai, a precursor to the avant-garde ceramics group Sodeisha, which he also joined in 1966. The show at Daiichi Arts includes new and past sculptural works. For more information, click here.

January 23–25

Egenolf Gallery Japanese Prints of Burbank, California, will show at the Portland, Oregon, Fine Art Fair at the Portland Art Museum. The evening of January 26 is an opening preview and benefit; Saturday and Sunday are admission free. For more information, click here.

February 21–22

Egenolf Gallery will be at Rare Books LA Pasadena at the Historic Raymond Theater and Courtyard Marriott Ballroom, 180 N. Fair Oaks Avenue. For more information, click here.

Until February 18

The Japan Foundation, Los Angeles, has a quintessentially Japanese craft exhibit on view. Package Craft: From Candy Box to Sculpture showcases a creative form of papercraft that transforms empty boxes into 3D figures such as heroes, animals and Buddhist statues, highlighting the beauty of everyday packaging and its creative transformation into art. For more information, click here.

New and Noteworthy

The Naej Foundation announces the global launch of its Japanese Bamboo Platform—the world’s first and largest online resource dedicated to the art of Japanese bamboo. This groundbreaking platform is accessible worldwide, free of charge, at https://naejartcollection.com. With acquisition and documentation developed by Joe Earle in collaboration with TBO Digital GmbH over 10 years, the platform contains over 1,070 works; 8,000 high-resolution images covering main views, details, bases, signatures and box inscriptions; and related documents in English and Japanese.

The Sainsbury Center is organizing a two-day conference on the future of the study of art, craft and design in a transnational perspective to honor the memory of the late Professor Toshio Watanabe. Submissions are invited by January 15, 2026. The conference is scheduled for May 15 –16, 2026, in London. For more information, click here.

Ongoing Exhibits

Until January 25, 2026

The Art of Manga is still on view at the de Young Museum, Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, San Francisco.

Until January 25, 2026

Chiharu Shiota: Two Home Countries remains at Japan Society, New York.

Until February 7, 2026

Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective, a stunning survey at the Museum of Modern Art of the artist’s six-decade-long career, was organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and MoMA. It documents Asawa’s life and work as a model of integrated art practice that saw no separation between living and art. For more information, click here.

Until February 8, 2026

Japanese Jewels: Imperial Silver Bonbonnières from the collection of Nancy and Robin Markbreiter is at the University Museum and Art Gallery, The University of Hong Kong. For more information, click here.

Until April 4, 2026

Until April 12, 2026

The Honolulu Museum of Art continues Lyrically Rebellious: The Prints of Onchi Koshirō.

Until May 3, 2026

Until May 24, 2026

The Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College continues Shining Prints: The Tale of Genji Reimagined in Japan.

Until July 2, 2026

Until September 13, 2026

Until July 12, 2027

At the Seattle Art Museum, the exhibition Ash-Glazed Ceramics from Korea and Japan is on view.December 2025

Lectures and Events

Wednesday, December 10, at 5 p.m. EST

JASA presents a live webinar with Dr. Jeannie Kenmotsu, Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Curator of Asian Art at the Portland Art Museum, Oregon, who will speak on The Art of Yoshida Chizuko (1924-2017), a groundbreaking 20th-century painter and printmaker. Today Chizuko is best known as a member of the Yoshida family of artists into which she married. However, as a young painter she made inroads into the male-dominated art establishment of mid-century Japan. Gifted with a brilliant sense of color and pattern, Chizuko won prizes for her work that was engaged with abstraction for over sixty years. Her first major retrospective, Yoshida Chizuko, at the Portland Art Museum until January 4, 2026, brings together over 100 works, many which have never been seen outside Japan. Click here to register for the Zoom event: Dec 10 Webinar.

Wednesday, December 10, at 7–8 p.m. PST

The Japan Foundation, Los Angeles (5700 Wilshire Blvd.), presents Kimono in Hollywood, a lecture demonstration by Sueko Oshimoto, an award-winning costume designer and kimono master who shapes bold storytelling about Japanese culture and color theory through costume. Admission free, but registration is required. To register, click here. For Sueko Oshimoto, see: www.kimonosk.com

Museum and Gallery Exhibitions

Until April 4, 2026

December 2–7

Erik Thomsen will be at Design Miami exhibiting bamboo basketry, lacquer boxes, and folding screens.

December 10–February 6, 2026

At his new New York Gallery, Golden Treasures: Japanese Gold Lacquer Boxes are on view.

Until December 3–7

The Tolman Collection is among the vendors at the Ink Miami Art Fair, 850 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach, Florid. Admission is free.

Ongoing Exhibits

Until December 12

Onishi Gallery shows works from Okayama Prefecture, Clay, Iron and Fire: the Bizen and Setouchi Heritage. Bizen ceramics have achieved international renown. Lesser known is the Mushiage ware from Setouchi, with transparent pine ash glazes and soft colors. For more information click here.

Until December 14

In collaboration with the Portland Japanese Gardens in Oregon, Honolulu Museum of Art spotlights the International Mokuhanga Association, established in 2011 to foster water-based woodblock print making (mokuhanga), with Enduring Impressions, an exhibit of six rising stars in the international mokuhanga community. The exhibition will open in Portland in Spring 2026. On view at HoMA. For more information, click here.

Until December 18

Ronin Gallery concludes its year-long 50th Anniversary with Contemporary Talents, which highlights prints by Japanese and American artists whose works are distinctly modern yet rooted in cultural heritage. For more information, click here.

Until December 20

Ritual & Renewal: Contemporary Japanese tea caddies and incense ceramics (Koro and Kogo) is on view at Dai Ichi Arts, online and 18 East 64th Street; private viewings by appointment only. For more information, click here.

Through December

At Joan Mirviss Ltd., masters of the Kutani glaze techniques Nakamura Takuo and Takegoshi Jun show new works in Beyond Kutani II, Innovations in Form and Color. For more information, click here.

Through December

At The National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, DC, view Knotted Clay: Raku Ceramics and Tea.

Until January 4, 2026

The Portland Art Museum, Oregon, presents Yoshida Chizuko (1924-2017).

Until January 7, 2026

Forms of the Unconscious, Ippodo Gallery’s exhibition of Kan Yasuda’s works in marble and bronze, continues. For more information, click here.

Until January 9, 2026

See Travel. Tourism, and the Transmission of Knowledge in and Around Japan at the University of Kansas.

Until January 11, 2026

Hiroshi Yoshida: Journey through Light continues at the Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota.

Until January 25, 2026

The Art of Manga is still on view at the de Young Museum, Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, San Francisco.

Until January 25, 2026

Chiharu Shiota: Two Home Countries remains at Japan Society, New York.

Until February 7, 2026

Until February 8, 2026

Until April 12, 2026

The Honolulu Museum of Art continues Lyrically Rebellious: The Prints of Onchi Koshirō.

Until May 3, 2026

Until May 24, 2026

The Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College continues Shining Prints: The Tale of Genji Reimagined in Japan.

Until July 2, 2026

Until September 13, 2026

Until July 12, 2027

At the Seattle Art Museum, the exhibition Ash-Glazed Ceramics from Korea and Japan is on view.

November 2025

Lectures and Events

Tuesday, November 11, at 5 p.m. EST

JASA presents Dr. Andreas Marks, Mary Griggs Burke Curator of Japanese and Korean Art at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, in a zoom webinar on Japanese illustrated books in premodern times. Japan’s Manga Revolution: From Painted Scrolls to Comic Books will elucidate the evolution of illustrated books as painted handscrolls appeared as texts enhanced with pictures. This talk surveys images inspired by poetry, celebrated beauties, kabuki actors and tales of adventures, ending with the birth of political cartoons in the 20th century. Click here to register for the Zoom event: Nov 11 Webinar. Please contact Cheryl Gall, Membership Coordinator, at jasa@japaneseartsoc.org or 978-600-8128 with any questions.

Wednesday, November 12 (with future dates TBD), 7-8:30 p.m. PST

The Japan Foundation Los Angeles is starting a new lecture series on Japanese art, to be held once a month for the next six months, that will trace the historical development of sculpture in Japan. The series lecturer is Michael VanHartingsveldt, Japan Foundation Art and Culture Program Officer. The first talk is The Beauty of Japanese Sculpture: Before and During the Asuka Period. Admission is free, but registration is required. 5700 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA. For more information, click here

Thursday, November 13, at 6–8 p.m. EST

A new series at The Met called Reading Modern Art features Gennifer Weisenfield, Distinguished Professor of Art, Duke University, who will introduce her new book, The Fine Art of Persuasion: Corporate Advertising Design, Nation, and Empire in Modern Japan. Discussants will be John Carpenter, Met Curator of Japanese Art, and Georgia Traganou, Parsons School of Design, the New School. Bonnie J. Sacerdote Lecture Hall, 1000 Fifth Ave. (81st St. entrance), New York, NY. RSVP required by November 10. For more information, click here.

Thursday, November 13, at 6–7:30 p.m. EST

At the Mary Griggs Burke Center, Columbia University, Hiroshi Asaka, Special Fellow at the Museum of the Imperial Collections (Sannomaru Shozōkan, Tokyo), will give a talk on the formation and history of the imperial collection and the current state of the Imperial Household Collection. 807 Schermerhorn Hall, Columbia University, 1190 Amsterdam Ave., New York, NY. RSVP for campus access QR code or Zoom link: mo2486@columbia.edu.

Thursday, November 20, at 6–7:30 p.m. PST

Tanya Uyeda, Director of East Asian Painting Conservation at the Seattle Art Museum (SAM), will present a talk on the conservation of The Four Accomplishments, a set of four 17th-century fusuma paintings being remounted in the Tateuchi Conservation Studio for a loan to a Japanese exhibition in Summer 2026. The two-venue exhibition (as yet unidentified) in Japan will reunite SAM’s paintings with a related set of bird and flower paintings belonging to the British Museum, and a recently discovered set of paintings from a private Japanese collection. SAM Plestcheeff Auditorium, 1300 1st Ave., Seattle, WA. SAM members $10, SAM member guests, $15. For more information, click here.

Tuesday, November 25, at 3 p.m. EST

Tim Zhang, Research Associate in Asian Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, will present a Met Expert Talk on Musical Aspects of Edo Period Painting, drawing on research he did with John Carpenter for the catalogue The Three Perfections: Japanese Poetry, Calligraphy, and Painting from the Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection. This program celebrates Carnegie Hall’s citywide Spotlight Japanseries. Art Study Room, the Met’s Uris Center for Education, 1000 Fifth Ave. at 81st St.,
New York, NY. For more information click here, and here.

Museum and Gallery Exhibitions

November 5, 2025– February 8, 2026

For visitors to Hong Kong, Japanese Jewels: Imperial Silver Bonbonnières is an unusual exhibition of the Nancy and Robin Marcbreiter Collection of the small silver containers—adorned with gold inlays and enamel—that became prominent in Meiji era imperial ceremonies. These masterful works of metal craftsmanship were used as gifts or party favors at important social or diplomatic functions that involved the imperial family. On view at the University Museum and Art Gallery, The University of Hong Kong. For more information, click here.

Until Thursday, November 6

Art in London 2025, an annual program, promotes London as a center of excellence in the arts of Asia with an array of specialized exhibitions, auctions and lectures presented by notable dealers, auction houses and leading cultural institutions. Fans of Japanese art will note the following two shows:

Anastasia von Seibold Japanese Art presents Edo to Showa: Fine 18th–20th Century Japanese Prints and Contemporary Paintings, which features Edo period ukiyo-e prints and a group of 20th-century Shin-hanga works. Rare prints by Charles Bartlett and Elizabeth Keith, and contemporary works by Toko Shinoda and Asakura Takafumi, are also available. Until November 5. Conduit Street Gallery, Sotheby’s London. For more information, click here.

Beauties, Beasts and Blossoms: An Important London Private Collection of Japanese Paintings is an online sale at Bonhams, London, with public viewings at its New Bond Street location. Until November 5. For more information, click here.

November 6–10

The Salon Art and Design show at the Park Avenue Armory in New York will have three booths with Japanese art:

Carole Davenport will show classical Japanese Negoro lacquer, an early Heian sculpture, a Momoyama period Buddhist hanging scroll and Noh masks. For more information, click here.

Ippodo Gallery will present Dialogues in Material, contemporary objects by Japanese and Western artists featuring a variety of materials that spark a unique chemistry of Japanese sensibility and western practice. For more information click here.

Onishi Gallery will feature Bizen ceramics and Osafune swords in Clay, Iron and Fire: the Bizen and Setouchi Heritage, works from Okayama Prefecture that embody centuries of craftsmanship. Their Upper EastSide gallery will also be open. For more information click here.

November 7–9

The Capital Art Fair of DC 2025, the oldest fair in America devoted to fine prints and drawings, will be open at the University Club of Washington DC; Saturday and Sunday are admission free. Seventeen exhibitors from across the United States will participate, including The Tolman Collection and the Verne Collection of Cleveland. For more information, click here.

November 7–December

Joan Mirviss Ltd. will feature new works by masters of the Kutani glaze techniques, Nakamura Takuo and Takegoshi Jun. The works in Beyond Kutani II, Innovations in Form and Color show their use the traditional colors of Old Kutani–emerald green, mustard yellow, peacock blue, brick red and eggplant purple—but Takegoshi paints flora and fauna on porcelain, while Nakamura creates sculptural forms in stoneware with colored surface decoration. For more information, click here.

November 7–December 18

Ronin Gallery concludes its year-long 50th anniversary celebration with the exhibition Contemporary Talents that focuses on the present and the artists shaping the future of Japanese art. The show highlights prints by Japanese and American artists who expand expressive possibilities across styles and media, interweaving old and new to yield works that are distinctly modern yet rooted in cultural heritage. For more information, click here

November 9, 2025–September 13, 2026

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art will open Deep Cuts: Block Printing Across Cultures, exploring revival, reinvention and refinement of block printing across cultures from the eighth century in Asia, Europe and North America. For more information, click here.

November 13, 2025–January 17, 2026

Ippodo Gallery presents Forms of the Unconscious, a major solo exhibition by internationally acclaimed sculptor Kan Yasuda, which celebrates Yasuda’s receipt of the distinguished 2025 Isamu Noguchi Award and marks his return to New York after more than a decade. The exhibition features new and iconic works in his signature Bianco Carrara marble and bronze. For more information, click here.

November 25–December 19

Dai Ichi Arts will open Ritual & Renewal: Contemporary Japanese Tea Caddies and Incense Ceramics (Koro and Kogo), a winter exhibition of small works by master Japanese ceramicists hat are beloved by connoisseurs and practitioners of cha-no-yu. Online and 18 East 64th Street; private viewings by appointment only. For more information, click here.

Until February 7, 2026

Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective, a 300-piece survey at the Museum of Modern Art of the artist’s six-decades–long career is an exploration of materials and forms in a variety of media–wire sculptures, bronze casts, drawings, paintings, prints and public works. Asawa, who studied at Black Mountain College in the late 1940’s, made art every day. This show, organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and MoMA, documents Asawa’s life and work as a model of integrated art practice that saw no separation between living and art. For more information, click here.

Until July 5, 2026

Princeton University has opened a splendid new art museum designed by Sir David Adjaye, the Ghanaian-British architect noted for infusing artistic sensibilities into community-driven projects. In addition to collection displays, the opening special exhibition celebrates the work of former Princeton professor Toshiko Takaesu, the Hawaiian-born ceramicist whose works are abstract paintings in the round. For more information, click here.

New and Noteworthy

Tuttle has published A Japanese Art Journey: A Curator’s Memoir of Polka Dot Pumkins, Paper Dolls and Woodblock Prints, by Meher McArthur, former curator at the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, of her experiences in Japanese art. This narrative of personal growth demonstrates in one person’s life the power of art to inspire and illuminate one’s place in the world. For more information click here.

October 2025

Lectures and Events

Monday, October 6, 5 p.m. EST

JASA presents an online lecture on manga by Dr. Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere, Research Director, Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Art and Culture at the University of East Anglia, Norwich. The lecture will focus on two major exhibitions Dr. Rousmaniere has curated, the first in 2019 at the British Museum, and the second now ongoing at the de Young Museum, one of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (see Museums, below). Once referring primarily to comics and graphic novels, manga now encompasses digital media, fine art, fashion, and other cultural expressions, achieving immense international reach. To register for the event, Exploring the Art of Manga, click here.

Wednesday, October 8, 4:30–6 pm

Keiji Shinohara, Master Printer, Artist-in-Residence, at Wesleyan University, will demonstrate woodblock printmaking while also exploring the history of ukiyo-e and the evolution of techniques and tools used in the production of multicolor prints, at this event, Cultural Impressions: A Japanese Woodblock Printmaking Demonstration, part of “Insight into Meiji Japanese Art, Books, and Prints Program” at Yale University. Henry R. Luce Hall Auditorium, 34 Hillhouse Ave., New Haven, CT. For more information, click here.

October 14, 7–8:30 p.m.

The Japan Foundation, Los Angeles, will present Dr. Meghen Jones from Alfred University who will speak on Ceramic Poetics and “Living National Treasures” in Japan Today. Her talk draws upon recent interviews and studio visits with current Living National Treasure designees and explores their vessel-centric philosophy with techniques of clay, glaze, and firing. For more information click here.

October 16, 6–7:30 p.m.

The Mary Griggs Burke Center for Japanese Art will present the Inaugural Miyeko Murase Memorial Lecture with a talk by Midori Sano, Professor Emerita of Gakushuin University in Tokyo. Folding Screens of the Tale of Genji: An Endless Journey will introduce Tale of Genji screens from the late 16th to early 17th century and focus on the new and distinct visual methods they use that departed from earlier established pictorial systems depicted in smaller formats. 807 Schermerhorn Hall, Columbia University. In-person and also available on Zoom; must contact Midori Oka (mo2486@columbia.edu) to RSVP and receive QR code to enter campus or Zoom link. Columbia University remains a closed campus. For more information, click here.

October 25, 9:15 a.m.–4:30 p.m., followed by reception

Discovering Yoshida Chizuko: A Symposium, The Mildred Schnitzer Memorial Program in Asian Art for 2025,

This day-long event for scholars, curators and artists will explore ideas introduced in the exhibition (see below) and offer an expanded context for her work. Speakers will discuss the inspirations that shaped Chizuko’s practice as well as her art and legacy in the historiography of modern Japanese art. Other topics include gender, postwar oil painting, 20th-century printmaking, and the Yoshida family of artists. Fields Ballroom, Portland Art Museum, Mark Building, 1119 SW Park Ave., Portland, Oregon. Registration fee; $25 for nonmembers. $12 for members and students with ID. For more information, click here.

Museum and Gallery Exhibitions

Until October 5

The Heritage Museum of Asian Art in Chicago will feature the work of Master Printer David Hwang with Gyotaku: Impressions of the Sea. A ticketed Introduction to Gyotaku workshop is scheduled for October 4, from 2–4 p.m.

Until October 11

Carole Davenport presents Kurahara at 100: Abstract Color, A Life in Art, a selection of paintings by Ted Kurahara that span his career, from 1954 to the present. A Japanese American artist who joined the famed 442ed regiment from an internment camp during WWII, Kurahara is noted for canvasses in solid colors and blended tones, and for a 30-year teaching career at Pratt Institute. Exhibition at Tambaran 2 Gallery. For more information click here.

Until October 11

Ippodo Gallery presents Koichiro Isezaki: Clay in Flow, the second solo exhibition in New York for this Bizen potter. Works include his iconic Yō vessels, as well as tea bowls and flower vases. From 4–5 p.m. on September 11, Isezaki and his mentor, Jeff Shapiro, will discuss practices of the Bizen kilns. For more information, click here.

October 23 -November 6

Dai Ichi Arts, Ltd., presents Silent Earth: Contemporary Ceramics by Kato Mami, the first solo exhibition in New York of this award-winning ceramic artist who is known for innovative glazes over porcelain vessel forms. Based in Tokoname, Kato is celebrated for her hand-built layering process and her “Frost Glaze.” For more information, click here.

October 24 -November 14

Erik Thomsen will feature works by Hatakeyama Kōji (b. 1956), who makes bronze vessels lined with gold foil, following techniques developed in ancient Mesopotamia, and adding applications of miso paste and vinegar to produce vivid tones and texture.

October 25

Onishi Gallery will participate in the Madison Avenue Fall Gallery Walkon. Their exhibition of table wares in Bizen clay by Kondō Masahiko (b. 1971) includes plate stands that resemble wood.

Until October 25

Joan B. Mirviss, Ltd., presents Collapse / Rebirth II, the second solo exhibition by renowned female ceramists Fujino Sachiko and Futamura Yoshimi. First brought together in 2016, their new work shows evolving approaches to clay in finishes and form. For more information, click here.

Until October 25

For Asia Week, Erik Thomsen features elegant works by celadon specialist Fukami Sueharu. For more information, click here.

Until October 26

The College Women’s Association of Japan (CWAJ) is a Tokyo-based volunteer organization dedicated to promoting education and cross-cultural exchange. Each year CWAJ produces a juried print show as their principal fundraiser in Tokyo. This year, as part of their 75th anniversary celebration, their 2024 exhibit, Trailblazers: Celebrating Contemporary Japanese Prints, will be on view at the Highfield Hall and Gardens in Falmouth, Massachusetts. The exhibition will feature 137 acclaimed Japanese printmakers showcasing a range of techniques from traditional woodblock prints to contemporary innovations and highlight the work of five outstanding trailblazers who overcame barriers to pursue careers in the visual arts: Shinoda Toko (1913–2021); Yoshida Chizuko (1924–2017); Iwami Reika (1927–2020); Yanagisawa Noriko (1940– ); and Tatsuno Toeko (1950–2014). Proceeds from the sale of original prints will support Highfield’s cultural programs and the CWAJ scholarship fund. For more information, click here, or visit highfieldhallandgardens.org.

Through October 30

At the Ronin Gallery, Modern Perspectives: Woodblock Prints from the 20th Century, features important masters in shin-hanga and sōsaku hanga, such as Kawase Hasui, Hiroshi Yoshida, Hashiguchi Goyo, Shiko Munakata, Kiyoshi Saito and Koshirō Onchi, whose work bridged tradition and innovation, redefining ukiyo-e for a modern era. For more information click here.

Until November 30

The National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, DC, has a number of Japanese art exhibitions on view, including shows of metalwork and the tea ceremony practice. Most intriguing is Cut and Paste: Experimental Japanese Prints and Photographs, featuring works from their own collection. Seventeen 20th-century artists are included with works that are on view for the first time. For more information, click here.

Until November 30; April 12, 2026

Visitors to Honolulu will encounter a rich selection of print exhibitions at the Honolulu Museum of Art (HoMA). Lyrically Rebellious: The Prints of Onchi Koshirō, a retrospective of 81 prints that show how Onchi changed the course of modern art in Japan by popularizing abstract art, is on view until April 12, 2026. HoMA has the largest collection of Onchi prints outside of Japan; this show and accompanying catalog celebrate his leadership in establishing the creative print movement. As a complement to Lyrically Rebellious, HoMA also presents additional examples of sōsaku hanga in Beyond Onchi: Works by Creative Print Artists, on view through November 30. For more information, click here.

Until December 14

Also, in collaboration with the Portland Japanese Gardens in Oregon, HoMA spotlights the International Mokuhanga Association, established in 2011 to foster water-based woodblock print making (mokuhanga), with Enduring Impressions, an exhibit of six rising stars in the international mokuhanga community. The exhibition will open in Portland in Spring 2026. On view at HoMA. For more information, click here.

Until December 5

Asian Art Museum of San Francisco is also home to one of the world’s largest collections of bamboo art, thanks to a 2001 donation from Lloyd Cotsen (1929–2017), who encouraged contemporary bamboo artists in Japan with sponsorship of the Cotsen Bamboo prize. Today that legacy lives on with the 2024 New Generation Bamboo Art Prize, arranged by Robert Coffland and Margo Thoma, with an exhibition of this year’s winners of that prize.

Until December

The Philadelphia Museum of Art’s show Visions of the Land in Japan, an exhibition of landscapes on paintings and objects drawn from their own collections, continues through the remainder of the year. For more information, click here.

Until January 4, 2026

The Portland Art Museum, Oregon, presents Yoshida Chizuko (1924-2017), the first retrospective of the artist’s six-decades long engagement with abstraction. The retrospective traces the evolution of her career independent of her father-in-law, Yoshida Hiroshi, and her husband, Yoshida Hodaka, with more than 100 works, many of which have never been on public view. For more information, click here. The museum is holding a day-long Scholar’s Day and Symposium on October 25. See Lectures, above.

Until January 4, 2026

At the University of Kansas in Lawrence, KS, Professor Sherry Fowler has organized Travel, Tourism, and the Transmission of Knowledge in and around Japan, an exhibition of materials drawn from the extensive collections of the University’s Kenneth Spencer Research Library. Works ranging from 1646–1936 include cartography, woodblock printed imagery and religious paraphernalia. The show was an outgrowth of Fowler’s Japanese art history seminar. The complete catalogue is available here.

Until January 11, 2026

The Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida, is presenting Hiroshi Yoshida: Journeys through Light, featuring prints made from sketches produced on his travels across the Americas, Europe, North Africa and Asia. The works focus on his betsu-zuri, or “separate printings,” referring to multiple color versions of a single design. For more information click here.

Until January 25, 2026

The Art of Manga, curated by Dr. Nicole Rousmaniere, opened September 27 in San Francisco at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The exhibition features some 700 rarely seen original drawings by 11 major artists ranging from the 1970s to today. The exhibition explores manga as a powerful medium for visual storytelling, highlighting themes across genres, such as friendship, sexuality, and the human condition. The installation, designed to show how manga is made, follows the journey of drawings from the hand of an artist to the printing presses. For more information, click here.

Until January 25, 2026

The Japan Society presents Chiharu Shiota: Two Home Countries, an exhibit commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. Shiota’s work typically features cobweb-like installations with found objects. This first New York solo exhibition explores wartime experiences and memories such as humanity, loss and national identity. The exhibition also documents the conceptualization behind Shiota’s stage set design for Japan Society’s theater commission Kinkakuji (Temple of the Golden Pavilion), which will premiere on the opening night of the exhibition. For more information, click here.

Until February 2, 2026

The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco is presenting New Japanese Clay, an exhibition of contemporary Japanese ceramics from the collection of Dr. Phyllis Kemper and Dr. David Stein of San Francisco. Playful colors, gravity-defying shapes, and contemporary sculptures from 29 different artists exhibit dynamic approaches to the medium of clay. For more information, click here.

Until May 3, 2026

At Yale University, the Beinecke Rare Book Library has organized Textured Stories: Chirimen Books of Modern Japan, an exhibition that introduces the history, production and legacy of chirimen-bon, the illustrated crepe-paper books produced between the 1880s to 1950s for Japanese learners of foreign languages. About 70 pieces, drawn from three separate collections on the Yale campus are included in the exhibition at Beinecke Library. For related programs, see Lectures, above. For more information, click here. See also: https://beinecke.library.yale.edu.

Until May 24, 2026

The Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College has a busy fall exhibition schedule that includes Shining Prints: The Tale of Genji Reimagined in Japan, an exhibition of prints with two different modes of artistic interpretation; the first group reflects the early 12th century illustrations of the tale, and a second featuring 18th and 19th century prints that recontextualized images and themes into contemporary settings. For more information, click here.

Until December 2026

National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, is presenting Knotted Clay: Raku Ceramics and Tea, featuring tea bowls, water containers and other vessels in the museum’s permanent collection that demonstrate the glazes and forms unique to Raku ware. More information here.

Until July 12, 2027

From the deep collections of the Seattle Art Museum, Ash-Glazed Ceramics from Korea and Japan, 34 vessels spanning ancient Korean gray wares to Japanese vessels from medieval to contemporary periods, illustrate the profound historical and technological exchanges between Korea and Japan in the realm of pottery. For more information, click here.

September 2025

Lectures and Events

Friday, September 26, 12–1:30 p.m. EST

Chelsea Foxwell, Professor of Art History, East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago, will give a talk on Viewing Japanese Ehon (Picture Books) Across Boundaries: Seeing/Reading, East/West, part of “Insight into Meiji Japanese Art, Books, and Prints Program” at Yale University. Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall, 128 Wall St., New Haven, CT. For more information, click here.

Museum and Gallery Exhibitions

September 11-19

Dai-ichi Arts presents Mavericks: Three Masters of Modern Japanese Ceramics, spotlighting the work of Koinuma Michio, Tsuboshima Dohei and Kawamoto Goro, each celebrated for technical virtuosity and expansive creative range. Kawamoto and Tsuboshima, both trained in Chinese painting, explore the expressive and pictorial possibilities of surface, and Koinuma focuses on form, blurring the boundaries between vessel and sculpture. September 11-19. For more information, click here.

On view September 11-19; by appointment through October 31

Drama Queens and Kabuki Kings: Stars of Edo and Osaka, an Asia Week exhibition at Scholten Japanese Art, will focus on portraits of kabuki stars, many of whom travelled back and forth between Edo and Osaka. Unlike prints made in Edo, in Osaka, patrons of actors supported print production, and the designers (until ca. 1830) were primarily kabuki fans who were talented amateur artists. In addition, the Osaka prints were of higher quality and issued in significantly fewer quantities than commercially produced prints. For more information, click here.

September 11-30

For Asia Week, the Onishi Gallery presents an exhibition on Kogei + Market, which will examine where Japanese elevated craft stands in the current art market and the position it might assume in the future. On Saturday, September 13, at 3 p.m., David Norman, a former Impressionist specialist at Sothebys, will present a special talk on the exhibition theme. For more information, click here.

Until September 14

Residents and summer visitors to San Francisco can catch Kunié Sugiura: Photopainting, at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the first survey exhibition of the “boundary-defying” artist that spans 60 years of her work in the United States. Sugiura (b. 1942) came to the States to study photography at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. Her practice embraced a hybrid approach, blending photography with painting, print-making and sculptural elements to produce dynamic hybrid works that reflect her bicultural identity. More information here.

September 15–20

Sebastian Izzard will feature a special group of Japanese porcelains he has quietly collected over several years. These are pieces intended for an elite domestic market for display and for use in the kaiseki meal. For more information, click here.

Until September 15

At the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, two shows will be of interest to lovers of Japanese art. Beautiful, Bountiful, Boisterous Birds is an exhibit of prints and paintings in hanging scrolls and screens that feature birds as decoration and symbols representing seasons, strength, longevity, fidelity and good fortune. Also on display are works by the queen of 20th-century Japanese calligraphy, Toko Shinoda (1913-2021). Shinoda was a trail blazer who re-shaped the art of ink abstraction with a distinctive and dynamic style.

Until September 21

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, presents its annual summer immersive, Floating World: A.A. Murakami, a project by the acclaimed Tokyo-and London-based artist duo A.A. Murakami. Melding science, art and nature to create unique environments, a series of four sensory landscapes unfolds across the galleries of the MFAH, immersing visitors in environments of light, fog, plasma and sound. For more information, click here.

Until September 28

The Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens in Delray Beach, Florida, invites visitors to explore a rare form of Japanese craft in its current exhibition, The Art of Peace: Jizai Okimono, featuring selections from a private collection of articulated metal sculptures crafted to look like insects, birds, reptiles, and dragons that flex, coil, and move. Beginning in the Edo period (1600–1868) when Japan was at peace, craftsmen who previously made armor and swords turned their skills to creating these decorative objects. For more information, click here, and scroll down to the third exhibition.

July 2025

Lectures and Events

Wednesday, July 9, 5:30–7 p.m. EST

Join Allison Tolman for a talk on Contemporary Japanese Prints: Trailblazers at the Highfield Hall and Gardens in Falmouth, Massachusetts, where the Tokyo College Women’s Association print show is currently on view. She will focus on five exceptional women printmakers who challenged tradition and reshaped the field of modern printmaking, defying the odds to gain international recognition. Members admission $10; others $15. For more information click here.

Saturday, July 12, 7–10 p.m. CT

Special for ichthyologists, and just lovers of nature, the Japanese Culture Center, in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago, is presenting an exhibit and evening program on Gyotaku, or fish printing. Dwight Hwang, a master artist in Gyotaku, will give a talk and live demonstration of this time-honored Japanese technique of memorializing fish and other sea creatures with a print made by pressing paper on to an ink-covered fish. For more information, click here.

Wednesday, July 29, 3 p.m. EST

As The Three Perfections: Japanese Poetry, Calligraphy, and Painting from the Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, continues to draw audiences with its programming, JASA is presenting a second opportunity for an in-person talk by its curator Dr. John T. Carpenter. The deadline to sign up is July 22. Fee: $20. To sign up, click here.

Thursday, July 31, 3 p.m.

Marco Leona, the David H. Koch Scientist in Charge, Department of Scientific Research at The Metropolitan Museum of Art will lead a tour and discussion of traditional colorants used in a selection of Japanese screens and hanging scroll paintings that are on view in the current exhibition The Three Perfections: Japanese Poetry, Calligraphy, and Painting from the Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection. Free with museum admission, but advance registration is recommended. To sign up for this Met-sponsored event, click here.

Until August 3

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is presenting The Three Perfections: Japanese Poetry, Calligraphy, and Paintings from the Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection, showcasing over 160 rare works drawn from more than 250 paintings and calligraphic works donated or promised to the museum. More information here.

Please note that the Japanese galleries at The Met will close after August 3 for renovations and will re-open in December.

Museum and Gallery Exhibitions

July 9–August

Joan B. Mirviss LTD, New York, presents the second solo exhibition of Takemura Yuri (b. 1980), displaying new work in teabowls and ceramic sculptures that represent an evolution in her practice. While maintaining her characteristic exuberant swirling forms and bold colors, Takemura has introduced new textures of clay and glaze that convey a weathered appearance, some parts highlighted by gold and silver foil. For more information and photos, click here.

July 10–August 22

Onishi Gallery is presenting Heated Colors, Hammered Forms: Female Metal Artists of Japan, which spotlights five women who have specialized in metalwork, an aspect of kōgei that was formerly a male preserve. Although metals are especially hard to handle, shape and decorate, the five featured artists have each devoted a lifetime to working with gold, silver, platinum, copper, lead and unique Japanese alloys, using traditional techniques to produce beautiful and expressive masterpieces. Check the Onishi Gallery’s website for more information when it becomes available.

Until July 14

The Heian period (794–1185) was the golden age of Japan’s Great Female Poets. Although little is known about them, their writings inspired legends that became subjects of Kabuki plays. At the Art Institute of Chicago, an exhibition of print images shows how artists of the Edo and Meiji periods interpreted the stories and legends that grew up around the lives of influential poets of the Heian period, such as Ono no Komachi (active 833–857), who wrote waka poems, and the novelist Murasaki Shikibu (973–1016). For more informaton, click here.

Until July 19

The Tai Gallery in Santa Fe has opened a show devoted to the work of two basket makers, Nakamura Tomonori (b. 1965) and Watanabe Chiaki (b. 1969), who both started training at the Sado Island School of Bamboo Art in Niigata Prefecture in 2010 with Master Honma Hideaki, learning to execute works that imaginatively explore transparency and linearity. For more information, click here.

Until July 20

Minneapolis Institute of Art is presenting And more by more they dream their sleep: Mezzotints by Yōzō Hamaguchi. More information here.

Until July 27

Washi Transformed: New Expressions in Japanese Paper, at the Palmer Art Museum, Penn State University, focuses on washi as a medium of contemporary art in Japan. The show spotlights the work of nine different artists who explore the artistic potential of the material. By layering, weaving, dying, twisting, folding and cutting, they push the boundaries of texture, dimensions

August 2–September 6

The Verne Gallery in Cleveland is presenting a selection of prints and paintings by the noted American artist Sarah Brayer (b. 1957), who has lived and worked in Kyoto since 1980. Drawn from Brayer’s 45-year career in Japan, the exhibit features prints and paintings on washi paper whose special properties she has learned to exploit. For more information, click here.

Until August 3

Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma, is showing Samurai: Armor from the Collection of Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller. More information here.

Until August 3

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is presenting The Three Perfections: Japanese Poetry, Calligraphy, and Paintings from the Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection, showcasing over 160 rare works drawn from more than 250 paintings and calligraphic works donated or promised to the museum. More information here.

Until August 10

Minneapolis Institute of Art is presenting Hokusai | Monet. In 1897, the French painter Claude Monet made four paintings of the chrysanthemums in his garden in Giverny, capturing them not in a vase but en plein air—painting the flowers as they grew. He had been an avid collector of Japanese prints since the 1870s, and his unexpected, expressive use of space in this experiment recalls the Large Flowers series of prints made between 1833 and 1834 by Katsushika Hokusai. This exhibition brings the Large Flowers and Chrysanthemums series into conversation, exploring the symbiotic artistic connections between Japan and France in the 19th century. More information here.

Until August 10

Japan Society Gallery opens its summer exhibition program with Susumu Shingu: Elated, the acclaimed kinetic sculptor’s first solo exhibition in New York City, featuring a selection of dynamic sculptures that draw on natural forms and phenomena evoking insects, birds, flowers, plants—even the moon and stars. Constructed of highly engineered materials, such as steel, fabric and Teflon, these works are designed to move and make visible the invisible forces of wind, heat, and gravity. More information here.

Until August 10

Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, has on view Trickster Spirit: Demons, Foxes, and Tengu in Japanese Folklore, an exhibit of paintings, prints and decorative objects that decode the multilayered symbolism of these forms, and considers how folklore reflects societal anxieties, gender dynamics and moral values. For more information, click here.

Until August 15

Ronin Gallery continues its 50^th anniversary celebration with the third installation of their ongoing 5-part series on the history of woodblock prints. Expanding Horizons: Woodblock Prints from 1860 through 1912 explores an era of profound change as Japan transitioned from a feudal nation to a modern empire. Established artists depicted the unfamiliar people and goods that arrived in Japan, rendering them in the bright colors of newly introduced aniline dyes. New technologies such as photography and lithography melded with diverse artistic styles to epitomize a changing role of the woodblock print in modern Japan. For more information, click here.

Until August 31

The Ackland Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is hosting Radical Clay: Contemporary Women Artists from Japan, which features outstanding ceramic work by 36 contemporary artists from the collection of Carol and Jeffery Horvitz. Inventive and expressive, at times mysterious or even shocking, the pieces in this exhibition push the physical limits of the medium. More information here.

Until September 1

Japan House Los Angeles is presenting Neo-Japonism: Samurai and Beyond, an immersive exhibition that brings bygone history to vivid life through advanced digital visualization techniques. In a brand-new video tour, interact with scale models of 3,000-year-old dogū figurines, examine ancient armor up close through 3D digital renderings, and wander through meticulous recreations of castle architecture. From a warlord’s tea bowl to masterful Edo-period artwork, Neo-Japonism allows you to experience priceless treasures from Japanese cultural history in Los Angeles. More information here.

Until September 7

The Cleveland Museum of Art is presenting a new exhibition of work by Japan’s most famous pop artist, Takashi Murakami: Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow, an expanded version of a show that originated at the Broad in Los Angeles. The artwork explores the lasting effects of three major events: the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945; the 2011 Tōhoku and tsunami; and the Covid-19 pandemic that began in 2019. Also included is Murakami’s re-creation of the Yumedomo, the Hall of Dreams, one of the important 7^th-century structures at the Horyuji temple in Nara, with four paintings expressing the artist’s vision of the founding of Kyoto. For more information, click here.

Until September 7

The Minneapolis Institute of Art is presenting Transcendent Clay: the Kondo Family’s Path of Porcelain Innovations, which examines the achievements of one family of Kyoto porcelain potters over the past century. Originally known for pure white vessels and stunning decoration in cobalt blue, the current grandson, Kondo Takahiro (b. 1958) has emerged as the family’s greatest inventor by developing the secret technique of applying a “silver mist” (gintekisai), of metallic droplets to his modern forms, which includes a life-sized seated statue of himself. Until September 7. More information here.

New and Noteworthy

At its annual dinner on June 12, the Japan Society honored collector Dr. Kurt Gitter with its 2025 Award in recognition of his lifelong dedication to Japanese art. For more than five decades Dr. Gitter has generously supported the field of Japanese art history by sharing his collection with institutions and individuals worldwide, thereby advancing public understanding of Japan’s artistic heritage.

June 2025

Lectures and Events

June 9, 5 p.m. EST

JASA’s Zoom webinar features Alica Volk, Professor of Japanese Art at the University of Maryland, who will speak about her new book, In the Shadow of an Empire: Art in Occupied Japan, which introduces little-known paintings, prints, and sculptures made during the U.S .Occupation (1945-1952) that show how artists both accommodated and resisted the Cold War realignment that followed World War II. Click to Register here.

Museum and Gallery Exhibitions

Until June 14

Hollis Taggart Gallery is presenting Teruko Yokoi: Noh Theater, an exhibition spanning the celebrated artist’s career from the late 1950s, when she lived in the Hotel Chelsea, through the early 2000s. The exhibition features over 20 works that illuminate Yokoi’s remarkable ability to weave modern American abstraction with the traditional aesthetics of Japanese visual culture. 521 W. 26th St., 1st Floor Annex, website: Hollistaggart.com.

Until June 14

Until June 20

The Kogei + Art exhibit at Onishi Gallery and Bergdorf Goodman (7th floor) features works in metal, lacquer and ceramics by noted Japanese artists continues. Onishi is also introducing a new jewelry artist, George Inaki Root, whose practice is based on kintsugi, the Japanese philosophy of “mended, not broken,” a term familiar as a method of repair using lacquer. For more information, click here..

May 2025

Lectures and Events

May 15, 12–1 p.m. EST

The Met’s Arts of Japan Galleries will hold a performance in Gallery 228 of an internationally acclaimed group, t he Shakuhachi 5, which has become the face of shakuhachi music in the 21st century. Organized in partnership with Japan Society, this intimate performance and conversation will feature a selection of repertoire spanning four centuries while showcasing the instrument’s unique dynamism.

May 20, 5 p.m. EST

JASA has scheduled a webinar via Zoom featuring a talk by John Carpenter, Mary Griggs Burke Curator of Japanese Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, who will discuss the themes covered in his recently published catalog The Three Perfections: Japanese Poetry, Calligraphy, and Painting (with Tim Zhang, Research Associate in the Met’s Department of Asian Art). This volume and the exhibition it accompanies memorialize the superb gift to The Met of more than 300 Japanese paintings and calligraphies from Mary and Cheney Cowles of Seattle. The second rotation of selections from the Cowles gift is now on view in the permanent collection Japan galleries until August 3. Examples of Heian and Kamakura calligraphies, medieval Zen calligraphies, and early modern paintings and decorative arts are included in this rotation. In addition, a portrait of Obaku founder, Ingen, with a Mokuan inscription, that previously belonged to Steve Addiss, and a wood temple plaque with Ingen calligraphy donated by Kurt Gitter and Alice Yelen Gitter, are included the Obaku section. Register here.

May 31, 1–4 p.m. EST

The public is invited to attend a demonstration and discussion of Japanese mokuhanga (woodblock printing) techniques and tools used by artists at the Kentler International Drawing Space in Red Hook, Brooklyn. $25 suggested donation. More info here.

Museum and Gallery Exhibitions

May 15–30

Dai Ichi Arts is presenting Breathing Vessels: Contemporary Ceramics for Yanagihara Mutsuo, a solo exhibition of the celebrated Kyoto ceramic artist, with works from his practice spanning more than six decades. Open house on May 17 and 18.

Until May 30

Scholten Japanese Art is presenting Binnie Meisho, an exhibition of over 70 landscape oil paintings, watercolors, drawings and woodblock prints featuring scenes Paul Binnie depicted in his many travels in Japan, the US and Europe. The exhibition also celebrates the release of El Capitan, Binnie’s latest addition to his on-going series, Travels with the Master, which follows in the footsteps of his artistic mentor, Hiroshi Yoshida (d. 1950), a leading artist of the shin-hanga movement. See Scholten’s website for an online catalogue of all works. For more information, click here.

Until June 20

New and Noteworthy

Norman Brosterman, noted authority on children’s toys and Japanese propaganda kimonos, has published a new book, From Shōgun to Godzilla: A Graphic Gameboard History of Modern Japan. This visual self-portrait of modern Japan is illustrated by events depicted in traditional Japanese sugoroku gameboards. The book is published by Perfect Paperback.