The exhibition Young Poland – Polish Art 1890-1918 features 11 works by Olga Boznańska (1865-1940), one of the most notable women painters of the early 20th century. In conjunction with this, two special works by Boznańska from the collection of the Ohara Museum of Art are on view in the Western modern art area of the collection galleries.

Boznańska was born in Kraków, Poland, and studied art there and in Munich before settling in Paris in 1898. Around 1920, when she was already a well-established artist, Kojima Torajiro, a Western-style painter from Okayama Prefecture, traveled to Europe twice. His aims were to refine his painting skills and to acquire Western artworks on behalf of his patron, the industrialist Ohara Magosaburo. Seeking to build a museum in Japan that exhibited masterworks of Western art, Magosaburo had requested that Torajiro select works while overseas. Torajiro made purchases primarily in Paris, obtaining works by Claude Monet, Henri Matisse, and El Greco, as well as these two works by Boznańska.

The painter Ishii Hakutei visited Boznańska in the spring of 1923, and described her in Notes from My Sojourn in Europe as a “renowned artist from [Poland].” He mentioned that “her work was included in Mr. Ohara’s collection on Mr. Aman-Jean’s advice,” indicating that Edmond-François Aman-Jean, a painter who assisted Torajiro with his acquisitions, had recommended Boznańska’s works for the Ohara collection. Hakutei also described her working style, noting how she painted a portrait of a young gentleman “messily, with a unique and quite disorderly palette,” conveying how she achieved her distinctive mottled colors with quick brushstrokes. These features are also evident in the Boznańska works that Torajiro acquired.

These two paintings were shown at the 2nd Exhibition of Works by Famous Contemporary French Painters, held at Kurashiki Ordinary and Higher Elementary School in 1922. They were subsequently added to the Ohara Museum of Art collection when it opened in 1930, but have seldom been shown publicly. Please take this rare opportunity to appreciate them fully.

The Taisho era was brief, lasting just under 15 years from 1912 to 1926. It was a time of drastic transformation, shaped by World War I (1914–1918), the Great Kanto Earthquake (1923), and the rise of Taisho Democracy, a popular movement that sought universal male suffrage and called for democratic and liberal reforms. In the art world, the first Bunten (Ministry of Education Fine Arts Exhibition) was established in 1907 as a government-sponsored event that offered valuable opportunities for emerging artists. However, over time, conflicts among jurors led to growing doubts about the fairness of the judging process. Meanwhile, Nihon Bijutsuin (the Japan Art Institute) in Tokyo had suspended its activities due to financial difficulties and the absence of leading figure Okakura Tenshin. In 1914, after Yokoyama Taikan was dismissed as a Bunten juror and Shimomura Kanzan resigned in protest, they took the lead in reviving the Institute. They marked its reemergence with an exhibition held on October 15, the same day as the 8th Bunten, clearly signaling their opposition to the official event. Meanwhile, in Kyoto, Tsuchida Bakusen, Ono Chikkyo, and others dissatisfied with the judging of the Bunten exhibition formed the Kokuga Sosaku Kyokai (National Creative Painting Association) in 1918, aiming to forge a new style of Japanese-style painting. The Bunten, plagued by a range of issues, held its final exhibition in 1918. It was replaced in 1919 by the Teiten (Imperial Art Academy Exhibition), supervised by the Minister of Education and the newly established Imperial Art Academy.

The magazine Shirakaba, launched in 1910, introduced Post-Impressionist artists such as Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Cézanne to Japanese audiences, inspiring not only Western-style but also Japanese-style painters. Some artists, while influenced by Western art, revisited traditional Japanese painting styles, incorporating techniques from Yamato-e painting and the Rinpa school. Others adopted elaborately detailed renderings like those of Albrecht Dürer and other Northern Renaissance artists, or of Chinese court painters. These diverse influences gave rise to original Japanese-style paintings during the Taisho era, characterized by a reverence for individual expression that encouraged these artists in their passionate pursuit of new directions in Japanese painting.

This year marks 80 years since the end of World War II. In the ensuing years, policies aimed at promoting gender equality based on Japan’s postwar constitution have contributed to the diversification of women’s social positions and lifestyles. In the art world, as many educational institutions became coeducational, there was a superficial expansion in women’s rights and opportunities to study art. However, at a more fundamental level, the patriarchal prewar system and male-dominated social norms remained entrenched, and women continued to face various constraints and difficulties in pursuing careers as artists. Some had to slow their pace of working and exhibiting due to obligations in their private lives, while others were unable to join, or deliberately distanced themselves from, predominantly male avant-garde groups. As a result, many artists have yet to receive the art-historical recognition they deserve. In recent years, many museums both in Japan and abroad have viewed this situation as unacceptable and taken steps to correct gender disparities by re-examining and reappraising the work of women artists. This section presents works by women born in Japan in the 1930s and 1940s who continuously pursued their creative practices amid the dramatic evolution of avant-garde art in the postwar years.

Tanaka Atsuko and Kanno Seiko were members of the Osaka-based artist group Gutai. Tanaka exhibited a series of abstract paintings composed of circles and dynamic lines executed in vivid vinyl paint, while Kanno’s paintings comprising accumulations of straight lines were inspired by mathematics and physics. Matsumoto Yoko has painted in an abstract mode since she was a student at Tokyo University of the Arts, consistently creating distinctive layered, hazy color fields while alternating between oil and acrylic and experimenting with various color palettes. She continues actively exhibiting both in Japan and abroad. Morimoto Kikuko gained acclaim with paintings in a unique style featuring animals and plants rendered in intricate detail. Kinoshita Kazuyo, who ventured into new artistic territory while battling cancer in her 50s, produced extraordinary large-scale oil paintings distinguished by broad strokes of indigo and white. In ceramic sculptures with images transferred from everyday product packaging, Mishima Kimiyo conveyed a sense of critical urgency about the impact of an advancing information society.

Some artists left Japan and were based overseas. Sugiura Kunié, who moved to the US in the 1960s to study photography, produced photograms featuring plants. Miyamoto Kazuko, based in New York, developed minimalist three-dimensional compositions incorporating string stretched into pyramidal forms. Meanwhile, Emiko Sawaragi Gilbert, who moved to the US in the 1970s, made delicate drawings that explore the uncertainty of human visual perception. Such diversification of materials and forms has been a notable trend in art over the past 80 years.

In the world of ceramic art, even after the war, women continued to face the persistent superstition that their proximity would render kilns “impure.” In 1957, Tsuboi Asuka formed the women’s ceramic art group Joryu Togei, paving the way for women’s broader participation in the field.

While we recognize that categorizing artists by attributes such as generation, gender, or race can be problematic, we believe that this selection of works by women offers valuable insights while exploring multiple perspectives on the human experience.

This museum’s commitment to crafts as one of our main areas of focus was established upon our opening in 1963, reflecting our location in Kyoto, the historical hub of Japan’s traditional culture. In our earliest years, we expanded the scope of this endeavor to encompass international developments, beginning with the International Exhibition of Contemporary Ceramic Art (1964), and actively presented innovative art made with craft-oriented materials, such as clay work and fiber art. As the art world continues rapidly evolving, this approach has provided perspectives essential for a Japanese modern art museum, enabling us to showcase outstanding works that transcend conventional frameworks of art and art history. For example, in examining the art institutions developed in Japan under Western influence in the course of modernization, there are various aspects that require an interdisciplinary vantage point for understanding. These include the significance of design advances undertaken collaboratively by painters, designers, and craftspeople, and its connections with industry, from the Meiji era (1868-1912) onward, as well as cross-genre interactions among avant-garde artists in the post-World War II years.

Kimono creators have initially been surprised to learn that this museum of modern art’s collection includes kimono. However, the inseparability of functional form and artistic expression has long been a central topic of modern discourse. Kitaoji Rosanjin, a visionary ceramicist who worked in myriad other fields as well, made an intensive study of the classics, while his creation of vessels was informed by a comprehensive grasp of their relation to food. Kitamura Takeshi, recognized as a holder of an Important Intangible Cultural Property (Living National Treasure) for ra (a transparent, twist-woven gauze-like fabric resembling knitted cloth) and tate-nishiki (warp-faced, compound weave brocade), engaged with the historical origins of textiles while alternating between restoring the old and creating the new. The works of Kawai Kanjiro, who maintained ties with the Mingei (folk art) movement while continuously changing his style until his final years, are preserved in the Kawakatsu Collection. This collection of 425 pieces includes work that won a grand prize at the Paris World’s Fair, and serves as a crucial reference for research on this important ceramic artist.

Inscriptions, literary themes associated with depictions of nature, and seasonal expressions leave room for interpretation on the viewer’s or user’s part, much like the arrangement of utensils in traditional settings. This reflects a deep-rooted cultural background that has, in fact, given rise to works which critically engage with Japanese conventions. Crafts have developed into a multi-layered field of expression that questions the very framework in which it exists. While artists of the same era approach their work from different perspectives, their works are united by a consistent spirit of contemporary originality and exploration.

As spring gradually segues into summer, we invite you to enjoy this selection from the museum’s collection.

Here we present paintings and prints related to music. While Frederic Chopin is the most celebrated composer from Poland, the focus of the exhibition on the third floor, it was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart of Austria who inspired Kanno Seiko (1933-1988) in her creative process. When Kanno found herself at a frustrating crossroads in her oil painting and felt a need to deeply ponder her artistic direction, she tore out pieces of newspaper while listening to Mozart. Her sensory and physical responses to sound were transformed into collages, honing both her aural and visual sensibilities.

Domoto Hisao’s (1928-2013) Dual Ensemble aims to harmonize dynamic colors and lines on a bisected canvas. While Domoto was a key figure in the avant-garde Art Informel movement at the time, this work marks a departure from it as he pursued a more individual style. He later noted that the work was influenced by orchestral performances, in which a wide array of instruments blend to produce a symphony, as well as by ideas from contemporary music.

Henri Matisse’s (1869-1954) Jazz, published in 1947, is a limited-edition art book containing prints of images originally made by cutting shapes out of paper with scissors. Despite its title, the imagery is not directly related to jazz as a musical genre. Matisse described jazz as music characterized by improvisation, vitality, and unity, reflecting the spontaneity of his cutouts, which give shape to color without intermediation. The Western-style painter Oguiss Takanori (1901-1986), enchanted by the joyfulness and vibrant colors of Jazz when he saw it in person, described it as “beauty dancing across the wall to the rhythm of colors.”

This section also features Kishida Ryusei’s painting of his daughter Reiko practicing the shamisen, inspired by classical Japanese art, and Fujimori Shizuo’s woodcut print, which represents a piano melody through flowing lines and the use of blank space. What kind of music do you hear emanating from each of these works?

How much time do you spend sitting from the moment you wake up until you go to sleep? What do you do while sitting?

Sitting takes up a large part of our daily lives. When we closely observe how people sit, we can catch glimpses of their personalities, and at times even interpret the social or cultural context reflected in their postures. This is why depictions of people sitting, whether working, reading, or doing other things, appear so often in art of diverse eras and cultures.

This area features images of sitting people. For this exhibit, one curator and two of the museum’s educators collaborated to select works and organize them into five themes, including “Sitting Indoors” and “Sitting Together.” The galleries contain various hints to help you enjoy the works. In the central gallery, we have prepared more chairs and seating areas than usual. We invite you to take your time, physically and mentally relax, and view the works at a slow, thoughtful pace.