Four Living National Treasures of JapanJun IsezakiKunihiko MoriguchiKazumi MuroseNoboru Fujinuma

the fine art societyasian art in London 2013

asian art in london 2013

THE FINE ART SO CIET YDealers since 1876in association with

Mariko Whiteway31 October to 21 November 2013 148 New Bond Street · London W1S 2JT+44 (0)20 7629 5116 · art@faslondon.comwww.faslondon.com

Asian Art in London+44 (0)20 7499 2215info@asianartinlondon.comwww.asianartinlondon.com

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Asian Art in London31 October - 9 November 2013

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Asian Art in London 2013

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Officially supported by The Embassyof Japan

Four Living National Treasures of Japan

Jun Isezaki

Kunihiko Moriguchi

Kazumi Murose

Noboru Fujinuma

The Fine Art Societyin association with

Mariko Whiteway

The Fine Art Society is proud to present the latest in a series of homages to the arts of Japan: a series stretching back to the 1880s, as you will read in Rupert Faulkner’s fascinating and informative introduction. The most recent in this series was in 1992 with Opening the Window: British Artists in Meiji Japan, with an introduction by the former British Ambassador to Japan and Chairman of the Japan Society, Sir Hugh Cortazzi. This is also the latest exhibition in partnership with Michael, and now Mariko, Whiteway; a series of co-operative ventures that commenced in 1972 with the appropriately titled The Aesthetic Movement and the Cult of Japan – an exhibition that charted the influence of Japan on British arts and architecture in the 1860s and 1870s.

We are also delighted to have the support of the Embassy of Japan with this venture, and it is our first exhibition under the excellent umbrella of Asian Art in London. And it is a remarkable coincidence that 2013 happens to be the 400th anniversary of the first official contact between our two nations; as the British Association for Japanese Studies so ably recounts: in September 1613, King James I gave the Shogun a precious goblet. He gave his father, the all-powerful former Shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu, a telescope – the first ever known outside Europe. The items, with letters of friendship, were conveyed by the newly formed East India Company. The Japanese responded with two suits of armour, ten sumptuous paintings and permission for the British to reside and trade in Japan for ever.

It could be said that we are the beneficiaries of this friendship; but without all her infectious enthusiasm, and the hard work of Mariko Whiteway, this exhibi-tion might have been still-born. So we are delighted that these four wonderful artists, great men in their own land, are allowing us to exhibit their work nearly 6000 miles from home. And I know that Marcus Huish, my predecessor, would have been very proud of a wonderful, continuing tradition.

Patrick BourneManaging Director, The Fine Art Society

Jun Isezaki · vaseBizen ceramic · 38.5 x 33 x 33 cm

illustrated opposite title page

Noboru Fujinuma · open-work flower basketBamboo · 22 x 43 x 43 cm

illustrated below

Dimensions are height x width x depth

This exhibition of the work of four of Japan’s Living National Treasures is one of the most ambitious of its kind to have been held in Britain for many years. We know about the achievements of these and other distinguished makers through exhibitions such as Crafting Beauty in Modern Japan (British Museum, 2007) and Japanese Studio Crafts: Tradition and the Avant-Garde (V&A, 1995). Never, though – and this is not to disparage the representation of high-end Japanese crafts at events such as the Craft Council’s annual COLLECT – has there been an occasion when so many works by four such eminent makers have been available to London’s collecting public. At the same time as being in keeping with the scrupulous standards for which The Fine Art Society has long been respected, there is a particular appropriateness in the FAS’s holding of this exhibition, for Marcus Huish, the founding Managing Director of The Society, was an ardent Japanophile who between 1880 and 1909 organised an important series of exhibitions on different aspects of Japanese art. He was, furthermore, an extensive contributor to the activities of the Japan Society and in 1888 published a wide-ranging volume entitled Japan and its Art.

Living National Treasure, for which the equivalent in this country would be Grade 1 Listed Person, is the popular term for Important Intangible Cultural Property, an individual designated by the Japanese government for his or her contribution to the trans-mission of craft (and also theatrical and musical) practices inherited from the past. The system was established in the course of the early 1950s when, in the aftermath of the Second World War, there were pressing concerns about the erosion of traditional Japanese culture. Following the initial identification

Introduction

rooted in the present. He uses the techniques of yūzen dyeing, which were originally pioneered in Kyoto in the seventeenth century, in the realisation of abstract designs derived through various types of mathemat-ical transformation. While this is not immediately apparent from static displays of his kimono, he is not only interested in the two-dimensional aspect of his designs but also in how, when his kimono are worn, their patterns shift and change as they move through space. The meticulousness of Moriguchi’s dyeing skills is echoed in the maki-e (‘sprinkled picture’) lacquer-work of Murose Kazumi. His designs range widely from the classicising through the stylised representa-tion of nature to the purely abstract. Every piece is the product of months of labour carried out with a degree of precision that disallows even the slightest of tech-nical errors. In contrast to Moriguchi’s yūzen dyeing and Murose’s maki-e lacquerwork, Fujinuma Noboru’s bamboo creations have a visceral quality more akin to Isezaki’s ceramics. If the weaving varies from formal through semi-formal to informal, thereby reflecting the concepts of shin-gyō-sō that underlie many traditional Japanese cultural forms and practices, the innate materiality of the bamboo is always allowed to express itself with unfettered immediacy.

RUPERT FAULKNERSenior Curator, Asian Department The Victoria & Albert Museum, London

of traditions that were felt to be worthy of preser-vation and in danger of being lost, the net was cast wider to include practices that were not necessarily in danger of extinction but were regarded as important for historical or artistic reasons. The appointment of individuals as living manifestations of these tradi-tions took place in 1955. Designations continue to be made to this day, with one of the key events for the showing of works by Living National Treasures and makers working in comparable modes being the annual Japanese Traditional Art Crafts Exhibition. Tradition in the context of this system is, most importantly, understood as an active process of conti-nuity and change. The goal is not imitation of histor-ical precursors but the exploration of inherited styles and methods of production through the making of objects that belong unequivocally to the present and are imbued with a strong sense of artistic creativity.

The categorisation used for the appointment of Living National Treasures is reflected in the structure of the Japanese Traditional Art Crafts Exhibition, which is divided into seven sections: ceramics, textiles, lacquer, metal, wood and bamboo, dolls, and a catch-all section for other disciplines such as cloisonné, glass and inkstone carving. In the current exhibition we have exemplars of ceramics, textiles, lacquer and bamboo. Isezaki Jun is a master of the distinctive clay from the Bizen area and the firing techniques used to conjure up the rich colours and textures for which Bizen ceramics have been admired since Japan’s medieval period. Some of his pieces are in classical vessel forms while others are in powerfully sculpted shapes reminiscent of cast engine blocks and similarly monolithic products of modern industry. Moriguchi Kunihiko is also firmly

Jun IsezakiJun Isezaki – born in 1936 – was designated as a living national treasure for work with Bizen pottery in 2004, only the fifth in this category. Although his craft is traditional he works in a very modern idiom. He has brought back the traditional design of kiln used in the middle ages – a kiln that is dug into a hillside like a tunnel. In contrast to the more common ‘climbing kiln,’ built on the top of the slope, this makes it possible to produce a large amount of pottery with a consistent quality.

Jun Isezaki · tall rectangular vaseBizen ceramic · 58.5 x 31 x 19 cm

Jun Isezaki · tall rectangular vaseBizen ceramic · 56.5 x 30.4 x 21.2 cm

Jun Isezaki · large sculpted dishBizen ceramic · 12.5 x 44 x 43.3 cm

Jun Isezaki · broad rectangular vaseBizen ceramic · 47.2 x 45.7 x 23.7 cm

Jun Isezaki · clay bird IIBizen ceramic · 19.7 x 13.9 x 10.2 cm

Jun Isezaki · clay bird IBizen ceramic · 17.5 x 14 x 10 cm

Jun Isezaki · tall footed vase IIBizen ceramic · 51 x 18.2 x 21.2 cm

Jun Isezaki · tall footed vase IBizen ceramic · 53.6 x 26.1 x 18.6 cm

Jun Isezaki · bird on gourdBizen ceramic · 33.3 x 19.5 x 14.8 cm

Jun Isezaki · large multi-faced vaseBizen ceramic · 38.6 x 23 x 18 cm

Kunihiko MoriguchiKunihiko Moriguchi – born in 1941 – was designated a living national treasure in 2007. Moriguchi is a Yuzen textile artist. Yuzen is a fabric dyeing technique dating back to the 17th century. Kunihiko Moriguchi is preserving a skill handed down to him by his late father, Kako Moriguchi, a celebrated kimono painter and living national treasure before him. Moriguchi spent three years at Paris’s École des Arts Décoratifs in the 1980s. and has shown his kimonos at the annual Exhibition of Japanese Traditional Art Crafts since 1976, and in Paris since 1986.

Kunihiko Moriguchi · kimono: ‘beyond’Yuzen dyed silk · 180 x 140 cm

Kunihiko Moriguchi

the big bang IIIYuzen dyed silk · 33 x 33 cm

the big bang IVYuzen dyed silk · 33 x 33 cm

Kunihiko Moriguchi

the big bang IYuzen dyed silk · 33 x 33 cm

the big bang IIYuzen dyed silk · 33 x 33 cm

Kunihiko Moriguchi

the big bang VIIYuzen dyed silk · 33 x 33 cm

the big bang VIIIYuzen dyed silk · 33 x 33 cm

Kunihiko Moriguchi

the big bang VYuzen dyed silk · 33 x 33 cm

the big bang VIYuzen dyed silk · 33 x 33 cm

Kazumi MuroseKazumi Murose – born in 1950 – was nominated a Living National Treasure in 2008. Murose graduated from the Graduate School of Fine Arts and Music at Tokyo University of the Arts. A Makie Urushi lacquer artist, Murose has exhibited in numerous exhibitions in Japan and abroad, including at the British Museum in 2002 in an exhibition titled The Culture of Lacquer: Japanese Beauty Inherited.

Kazumi Murose · chessboardMakie Urushi lacquer · 6 x 44.8 x 44.8 cm

Kazumi Murose · box and coverMakie Urushi lacquer · 9 x 24 x 24 cm

Kazumi Murose · three-tier boxMakie Urushi lacquer · 21.5 x 21.5 x 21.5 cm

Kazumi Murose · wine coolerMakie Urushi lacquer · 21.5 x 14.5 x 14.5 cm

Kazumi Murose · box and coverMakie Urushi lacquer · 17.2 x 44 x 28.1 cm

Kazumi Murose · small box and coverMakie Urushi lacquer · 2.2 x 7.4 x 7.4 cm

Kazumi Murose · incense containerMakie Urushi lacquer · 14 x 11.3 x 11.3 cm

Kazumi Murose · SMALL boxMakie Urushi lacquer · 11.2 x 13 x 13 cm

Noboru FujinumaNoboru Fujinuma – born in 1945 – was designated a living national treasure in 2012. Fujinuma is a bamboo artist, a chance trip to Paris, in 1972 changed his life. He returned home anxious to study and revive traditional Japanese craft, choosing the art of bamboo. After serving an apprenticeship with Yagisawa Keizo, Fujinuma started to innovate. In 1992, at the 39th Traditional Craft Arts Exhibition, his work received the winning Tokyo Governor’s Prize and was purchased by the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.

Noboru Fujinuma · ikebana basket IBamboo · 44 x 17 x 17 cm

Noboru Fujinuma · ikebana basket IBamboo · 54 x 19 x 19 cm

Noboru Fujinuma · cylindrical vase IIBamboo · 49 x 9 x 9 cm

Noboru Fujinuma · cylindrical vase IBamboo · 54 x 9 x 9 cm

Noboru Fujinuma · flower basket IIBamboo · 23 x 34 x 36 cm

Noboru Fujinuma · flower basket IBamboo · 27 x 22 x 22 cm

Noboru Fujinuma

large basketBamboo · 28 x 50 x 50 cm

plaited basketBamboo · 22.5 x 37 x 34 cm

illustrated on back cover

Published by The Fine Art Society, in association with Mariko Whiteway, for the exhibition Four Living National Treasures of Japan held at 148 New Bond Street, London W1, from 31 October to 21 November 2013

Introduction © Rupert Faulkner 2013 Catalogue © The Fine Art Society 2013

ISBN 978 1 907052 32 3

Designed and typeset in Minion by Dalrymple Printed in Belgium by Deckers Snoeck

T H E F I N E A R T S O C I E T YDealers since 1876

148 New Bond Street · London W1S 2JT+44 (0)20 7629 5116 · art@faslondon.comwww.faslondon.com

The Fine Art Societyin association with

Mariko Whiteway