From March 26 to July 23, 2023, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, will host the exhibition “Hokusai: Inspiration and Influence”, that includes greater than 90 works by one of many biggest masters of Japanese Art
Source: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston · Image: Katsushika Hokusai, “Red Fuji” (c.1830–31)
Taking a brand new method to the work of the ever-popular Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849), this main exhibition explores intimately his impression on different artists—each throughout his lifetime and past. Throughout a profession of greater than 70 years, Hokusai experimented with a variety of kinds and topics, producing landscapes such because the immediately recognizable Great Wave and Red Fuji (each about 1830–31), nature research often known as “bird-and-flower pictures,” and depictions of girls, heroes, and monsters.
The exhibition brings collectively over 90 woodblock prints, work, and illustrated books by Hokusai with some 170 works by his lecturers, college students, rivals, and admirers. These distinctive juxtapositions show Hokusai’s affect by time and house—seen in works by, amongst others, his daughter Katsushika Ōi, his contemporaries Utagawa Hiroshige and Utagawa Kuniyoshi, the Nineteenth-century French Japonistes, and fashionable and up to date artists together with Loïs Mailou Jones, Yayoi Kusama, John Cederquist and Yoshitomo Nara.
Hokusai: Inspiration and Influence is organized thematically, with sections targeted on Hokusai’s lecturers and college students, surimono (privately commissioned prints), the origins of Japonisme, landscapes, nature research and depictions of heroes and monsters. The largest part, positioned on the middle of the exhibition, is devoted to Under the Wave off Kanagawa (The Great Wave) (1830–31). The print is introduced alongside works that riff on or straight cite Hokusai’s iconic picture, from John Cederquist’s How to Wrap Five Waves (1994–95) and Roy Lichtenstein’s Drowning Girl (1963, Museum of Modern Art, New York) to Andy Warhol’s The Great Wave (After Hokusai) (1980–87, The Andy Warhol Museum) and a Lego recreation (2021) by licensed grasp builder Jumpei Mitsui.
“The MFA is home to one of the largest and most significant collections of Hokusai’s works in the world, making us uniquely positioned to tell the story of his enduring appeal and his impact on other artists,” stated Sarah E. Thompson, Curator of Japanese Art. “We hope visitors enjoy this new look at the legacy of the ever-popular painter, book illustrator and print designer.”