NEW YORK, NY.- In celebration of Asia Week New York 2020, Thomsen Gallery (9 East 63rd Street, New York NY 10065) opened a special exhibition of Japanese Modern and Post-War Art.

Emphasizing the Gallery’s established leadership role in the presentation of works by twentieth-century masters, the exhibition offers an overview of Japan’s artistic achievements in the varied disciplines of bamboo; lacquer; neo-nativist screen and scroll painting; and avant-garde calligraphy and painting.

Thomsen Gallery is renowned for its coverage of artists who sustained and repurposed the centuries-old skills of the Japanese lacquerer. A “Document Box with Design of Poem and Bush Clover” by Kōda Katei (1886–1961) revives the courtly tradition of designs based on classical literature, its immaculately polished black cover setting off an abstract array of lacquered and inlaid characters—taken from a poem written more than 1,000 years before—in a perfect fusion of antiquity and modernity. A “Hirobuta Tray” from the Minoya Studio (circa 1930), intended as a container for formal gifts, depicts three branching stems of fern in different mixtures of gold and silver powder perfectly emulating the plant’s contrasting shades. Combining naturalism with acute design sense, the tray is a standout instance of twentieth-century lacquer design from a favorite workshop of Japan’s imperial household.

As with previous exhibitions held at the Gallery’s new space on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, the display is dominated by masterpieces of screen painting: the grandest of Japanese pictorial formats and the most lavish in terms of the materials used for their creation. The Gallery’s enviable reputation for sourcing major, provenanced twentieth-century screens is underscored by “Autumn at the Rakushisha” by Hatta Kōyō (1882–1944), a pair of two-panel screens executed in sumi ink, mineral colors, gofun (crushed shell) and gold on silk. Last exhibited at Japan’s national Teiten exhibition in 1925, the screens are a poetic evocation—using elements of Western-style perspective and composition—of the “House of Fallen Persimmons,” a scholarly retreat in the outskirts of Kyoto associated with legendary haiku poet Matsuo Bashō. The screen paintings have been complemented by a selection of hanging scrolls from various artists: including depictions of bijin (beautiful women) and natural scenes such as “Summer on the Hozu River,” a dramatic painting by Kawamura Manshū (1880–1942) of a boatman navigating treacherous rapids.

Contrasting with these screens and scrolls, all of them by artists who remained fundamentally loyal to the styles and techniques of traditional Japanese art, is a selection of works by three avant-garde masters of calligraphy and abstract painting whose practice reflects a more global vision. “Dragon” (1985), a single-character calligraphy by Morita Shiryū (1912¬–1998), measuring more than four by seven feet, was executed in ink on paper, using an outsize brush and working quickly to produce a shape that no longer appears as a character but seems to represent a mythical beast with a long tail flying through the air. “Inhale,” by Inoue Yūichi (1916–1985), another single-character piece from a leading member of the postwar calligraphy movement, explodes onto the paper with a primal, visceral energy that cries out for our attention, creating a new world where meaning and emotion are fused into an integral whole. A still more western style of abstraction is seen in the paintings and collages of artist-poet Kitani Shigeki (1928–2009), an activist and member of the now-legendary Gutai group whose “Oni” (Demon, 1963) eloquently expresses his stated belief that “Even if people do not understand my work, it should give them a sense of mystery.”