TN: Nashville

WHERE: Frist Center for the Visual Arts

WHEN: Friday, January 31, 2014 through May 11, 2014.

TITLE: Looking East: Western Artists and the Allure of Japan

Utagawa Hiroshige I. Bamboo Yards, Kyôbashi Bridge,from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, Japanese, Edo period. Woodblock print, 14 9/16 x 9 15/16 in. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, William Sturgis Bigelow Collection,11.26350. Photograph © 2013 MFA, Boston.
Utagawa Hiroshige I. Bamboo Yards, Kyôbashi Bridge,from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, Japanese, Edo period. Woodblock print, 14 9/16 x 9 15/16 in. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, William Sturgis Bigelow Collection,11.26350. Photograph © 2013 MFA, Boston.

BRIEF ABOUT: Premiering at the Frist Center, this traveling exhibition reveals aspects of the fruitful exchange by presenting works and objects by influential Japanese artists alongside those of Western luminaries, such as Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, John La Farge, Claude Monet, Edvard Munch, Alfred Stieglitz, Vincent van Gogh, Frank Lloyd Wright, including many others which celebrates the cultural and aesthetic influences of Japanese art and culture on the Western imagination in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

     The exhibit consists of more 170 objects, including arms and armor, decorative arts, paintings, prints and drawings and textiles, is organized into five segments, starting with an introductory section, followed by the themes of city life, women, nature and landscape. For each thematic subject, Japanese objects are paired with American or European works to represent a particular stylistic or technical influence.

Claude Monet. The Water Lily Pond, 1900. Oil on canvas, 35 1/2 x 36 1/2 in. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Given in memory of Governor Alvan T. Fuller by the Fuller Foundation, 61.959. Photograph © 2013 MFA, Boston.
Claude Monet. The Water Lily Pond, 1900. Oil on canvas, 35 1/2 x 36 1/2 in. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Given in memory of Governor Alvan T. Fuller by the Fuller Foundation, 61.959. Photograph © 2013 MFA, Boston.

   “There have only been a few exhibitions on this subject and it is exciting for the Frist Center to be the first venue for this one,” says Frist Center Curator Trinita Kennedy. “Because of the presence of Japanese companies, Nashville is the perfect place to celebrate this important moment of artistic exchange between East and West.”

     Drawn from and organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, world renowned for their Japanese, American, and European collections of this period, ‘Looking East’ will coincide with the city’s Cherry Blossom Festival, and will later be seen throughout Japan as well as at the Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec and San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum.

MORE DETAILS: Call615.244.3340 or www.fristcenter.org.