In March, JOAN B. MIRVISS LTD will celebrate its 40th anniversary! To mark the occasion, the gallery presents the important exhibition, “Timeless Elegance in Japanese Art: A Celebration of Forty Years” accompanied by a fully illustrated publication.
This celebratory show includes forty plus works of art carefully chosen over several years in anticipation of this milestone. Twenty of these works, by living artists working in clay and long represented by the gallery, were created or specifically selected by each artist for this event. The balance of this exhibition consists of major, innovative paintings and famous ukiyo-e prints by important eighteenth and nineteenth-century artists, together with masterworks by eminent ceramists of the twentieth century. Highlights include major vessels by pioneers in the art of clay, such as KITAÔJI ROSANJIN, YAGI KAZUO, OKABE MINEO and KAMODA SHÔJI, as well as works by contemporary stars, including AKIYAMA YÔ, FUJIKASA SATOKO, KAWASE SHINOBU, OGAWA MACHIKO, and SUZUKI OSAMU. The chef d’oeuvre among the paintings is a strikingly modern set of six-fold screens, dated 1903, by the Kyoto painter HASHIMOTO GAHÔ, which dramatically depict a rising moon with young bamboo paired with a setting sun with a pine tree, both in ink juxtaposed against a radiant gold ground. Noteworthy early impressions in superb condition of celebrated ukiyo-e woodblock prints by the world-renowned masters, HARUNOBU, HOKUSAI and HIROSHIGE complement this collection and are partnered with new discoveries by the well known painters YAMAMOTO BAIITSU, NAKAMURA HÔCHÛ, TAKEUCHI SEIHÔ and SHIBATA ZESHIN.