A significant new exhibition exploring the extraordinary influence of Japanese art and culture opens at Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum this April.
Hokusai’s Great Wave: Reflections of Japan brings together for the first time newly researched Japanese ukiyo-e prints and Samurai armour from the Worcester City and Worcestershire County collections, 19th century Japanese illustrated books and ceramics from the Museum of Royal Worcester, Hokusai’s Great Wave from Bristol Museum and Art Gallery and contemporary woodcuts from Tate.
Hokusai’s Great Wave: Reflections of Japan is supported by the Weston Loan Programme with Art Fund. Created by the Garfield Weston Foundation and Art Fund, the Weston Loan Programme is the first ever UK-wide funding scheme to enable smaller and local authority museums to borrow works of art and artefacts from national collections.
After centuries of isolationism, Japan opened up to foreign travellers in the 1850s, and the Western world encountered a culture unlike any other. Japanese art and design were completely different from Victorian styles, and a huge fashion for everything Japanese consequently developed in Western Europe and Great Britain during the 1860s and 70s.
As traditional ukiyo-e prints began to be seen in the West, artists immediately responded to images that broke all the rules of Western art, and that appeared so daring and unexpected in their design and use of perspective and colour. The Impressionists took particular inspiration from ukiyo-e: Van Gogh collected them, and the Aesthetic and Arts & Crafts movements were deeply influenced by Japanese design.
New research was undertaken into Worcester’s Japanese print collection during 2020, whilst museums were closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Many of the prints were created by artists from the popular Utagawa school, plus there are notable examples from Utagawa Hiroshige and Keisei Eisen. Visitors to Hokusai’s Great Wave: Reflections of Japan will be able to see the collection of ukiyo-e brought together for the first time, alongside a newly restored 19th century suit of Samurai armour with sword.
The trend for Japonism extended to the designs of Worcester’s most famous export – Royal Worcester Porcelain – and the exhibition includes 19th century woodblock-printed books and photographs of Japanese scenes and people, acquired by the company to provide inspiration for the porcelain designers. Many of the books have been dismantled, and their images copied and adapted for use in porcelain manufacture. The resulting designs can be seen in exquisite items of porcelain on loan from the Museum of Royal Worcester.
One of the most recognisable images in Japanese art, The Hollow of the Deep Sea Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai – better known as The Great Wave – forms a centrepiece of the exhibition. It sits alongside contemporary prints on loan from Tate, created in 1993 by Masami Teraoka, that illustrate the development of the ukiyo-e style into the modern age. A series of 20th century silk embroideries, hanging scrolls and ivory netsuke from Bewdley Museum complete the exhibition.
Kate Banner from Museums Worcestershire said: “This exhibition is a wonderful opportunity to show these artworks and objects together for the first time, and to explore the cultural and artistic exchange between east and west. It is with great pleasure that we’re able to present new research that sheds light on this wonderful collection – particularly given that it stems from new ways of working during a very difficult year. We hope visitors will enjoy learning more about how the enduring fascination with traditional Japanese art has evolved.”
Hokusai’s Great Wave: Reflections of Japan opens at Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum on 2 April 2022, and will run until 2 July 2022. Find out more at museumsworcestershire.org.uk.
