Ink, Paper, Silk: One Hundred Years of Collecting Japanese Art

December 12, 2018–April 14, 2019

An exceptional selection of scroll paintings, screens, woodblock prints, lacquerware, and ceramics demonstrating the breadth and beauty of Japanese art.

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Okamoto Shūki: White Swallows by a Waterfall, 19th century (detail); ink and color on silk; 38 1/4 x 14 in.; BAMPFA, gift of Dr. Eugene C. Gaenslen, Jr.

Upcoming
Films
Upcoming
Events
Selected
Objects
Past
Films
Past
Events

Selected Exhibition Objects

Painting

White Swallows by a Waterfall

Okamoto Shūki

19th century
ink and colors on silk
38 1/4 x 14 in.
BAMPFA, gift of Dr. Eugene C. Gaenslen, Jr.
Painting

Civets in a Landscape

School of Kanō Motonobu

mid-16th century
ink and color on paper
61 1/2 x 33 in. each
BAMPFA, gift of Dr. Eugene C. Gaenslen, Jr.
Painting

Chinese Children and White Elephant (1 of 2)

Attributed to Nagasawa Rosetsu

18th century
six-fold screen: ink and gold on paper
67 x 147 in.
BAMPFA, gift of Mr. and Mrs. C. D. Carter
Painting

Chinese Children and White Elephant (2 of 2)

Attributed to Nagasawa Rosetsu

18th century
six-fold screen: ink and gold on paper
67 x 147 in.
BAMPFA, gift of Mr. and Mrs. C. D. Carter
Painting

The Poet Hitomaro at the Seashore

Sakai Hōitsu

c. 1807
ink and color on silk
20 1/8 x 44 1/8 in.
BAMPFA, gift of Dr. Eugene C. Gaenslen, Jr.
Print

Satō Oniwaka-maru, from the series Essays by Yoshitoshi

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi

1872
color woodblock print
13 1/2 x 9 in.
BAMPFA, gift of William Dallam Armes

Past Events

Saturday, February 9, 11:30 AM–1 PM or 1–2:30 PM
Gallery + Studio: Animal Encounters in Japanese Art

Get inspired by the Japanese art in Ink, Paper, Silk and paint your own images of animals on a miniature Japanese folding screen.

BAMPFA

For ages 6 to 12 with accompanying adult(s)
Thursday, December 13, noon
Gallery Talk: Elizabeth Sharf on the Japanese Collection

A visiting scholar from UC Berkeley’s Center for Japanese Studies lead an expert tour of Ink, Paper, Silk.

BAMPFA

Ink, Paper, Silk: One Hundred Years of Collecting Japanese Art

December 12, 2018–April 14, 2019

BAMPFA's Japanese art collection began in 1919 with a remarkable donation of more than a thousand woodblock prints from the estate of UC Berkeley Professor of English William Dallam Armes. This exhibition features a selection of these exceptional prints, as well as hanging scroll paintings, screens, lacquerware, and ceramics that have entered the collection over the century since this transformative gift changed the small, mostly regional art collection of the University forever, creating a foundation for what would become BAMPFA’s extensive holdings of Asian art and helping catapult the museum into a new era of international art collecting.

A remarkable group of surimono prints—...

A remarkable group of surimono prints—small, privately published prints made for special occasions and intended as gifts—is on view, for the first time, along with translations of the poetry inscribed on these exceptionally beautiful works. The delicately painted White Swallows by a Waterfall by Okamoto Shuki (1807–1862) demonstrates the Japanese artist’s special connection to the natural world. The grandeur of the impressive Japanese tradition of screen painting is on display in several examples of this format, including Children Playing on an Elephant, attributed to the eighteenth-century painter Nagasawa Rosetsu (1754–1799). In this charming work, young boys line up to climb over a massive, reclining elephant, feeding him tufts of grass and wondering at his enormity. The exhibition also features several fine lacquerware and ceramic pieces that have recently joined the collection.

A powerful calligraphic work by Mokuan Shōtō—a Chan monk who came from China, settled in Japan during the seventeenth century, and helped to found the Obaku Zen sect of Buddhism—is the most recent addition to the collection. It takes its place alongside Armes’s gift and those of many other donors as we celebrate the collection’s first century and look forward to a bright future of collecting Japanese art at BAMPFA.

Less

Ink, Paper, Silk: One Hundred Years of Collecting Japanese Art is organized by Senior Curator for Asian Art Julia M. White in collaboration with independent scholar Elizabeth Sharf and Associate Professor Jonathan Zwicker, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Berkeley. Yisheng Tang, a student working with Zwicker, contributed translations for the gallery labels. Assistant Curator Stephanie Cannizzo and curatorial intern Jiaqian Zhu provided logistical support. The exhibition is made possible in part by the Asian Art Endowment Fund. Additional in-kind support is provided by Farrow & Ball.

Sponsor

Farrow & Ball

Ink, Paper, Silk: One Hundred Years of Collecting Japanese Art

December 12, 2018–April 14, 2019

Selected Exhibition Objects

Painting

White Swallows by a Waterfall

Okamoto Shūki

Painting

Civets in a Landscape

School of Kanō Motonobu

Painting

Chinese Children and White Elephant (1 of 2)

Attributed to Nagasawa Rosetsu

Painting

Chinese Children and White Elephant (2 of 2)

Attributed to Nagasawa Rosetsu

Painting

The Poet Hitomaro at the Seashore

Sakai Hōitsu

Print

Satō Oniwaka-maru, from the series Essays by Yoshitoshi

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi

Past Events

Gallery + Studio: Animal Encounters in Japanese Art

Gallery Talk: Elizabeth Sharf on the Japanese Collection