HARTFORD, CT – (PNAN) – Two monumental scroll paintings by Japanese artist Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806) will be reunited for the first time in more than 130 years at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in an exhibition, “Utamaro and the Lure of Japan” opening Saturday, January 7, 2017.
The exhibition will bring together the works, “Fukagawa in the Snow” (1802-1806), from the Okada Museum of Art in Hakone, Japan, with the museum’s own, “Cherry Blossoms at Yoshiwara” (1793). The show will also display more than 50 objects, including paintings, prints, textiles, porcelain and armaments taken from the Atheneum’s 1,000-object collection of Japanese art.
Artist Utamaro was one of Japan’s greatest artists of “ukiyo-e”-pictures that depicted the “floating world” of ephemeral everyday life, especially the pleasures of love and entertainment, in Edo (now Tokyo) from the early eighteenth through the mid-nineteenth century. He is known for his portraits of beautiful women, and in the two monumental paintings included in the exhibition specifically celebrates the courtesans who lived in the famous pleasure districts of the time.
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Founded in 1842, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art is the oldest continuously operating public art museum in the United States. The museum’s nearly 50,000 works of art span 5,000 years, from Greek and Roman antiquities to the first museum collection of American contemporary art. The Wadsworth Atheneum’s five connected buildings-representing architectural styles including Gothic Revival and modern International Style. More at www.thewadsworth.org or call 860.278.2670.