NEW YORK, NY.- The 2025 Asia Week exhibition at Thomsen Gallery features Japanese modern masterpieces of paintings, gold-lacquer wares, metal works, and ikebana bamboo baskets.

The exhibition focuses on the Taisho era (1912-1926) and early Showa era (1926-1989), a time of great change for Japan and its arts. Superb works were created for the domestic market, in contrast to the export- oriented output that weas made during the preceding Meiji era (1868- 1912). Though most painters of the Taisho and early Showa eras typically remained focused on traditional themes, they often experimented with new materials and perspectives. They shifted from stylized depictions of nature to naturalistic botanical studies. Making trips abroad, many painters incorporated foreign elements from their travels into their work.

The bamboo baskets, intricate gold lacquer boxes and the metal works from the Taisho and Showa eras highlight the technical perfection in works of art that were executed in traditional formats and materials but explored new worlds of expression and design.

Thomsen gallery, located in a townhouse on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, offers important Japanese paintings and works of art to collectors and museums worldwide. The gallery specializes in Japanese screens and scrolls; in early Japanese tea ceramics from the medieval through the Edo periods; in masterpieces of ikebana bamboo baskets; and in gold lacquer objects. It further specializes in post-war ink art and Gutai art as well as contemporary art by select artists, such as the internationally renowned Japanese ceramic artist Sueharu Fukami, the paper artist Kyoko Ibe, and the lacquer artist Yoshio Okada.

The gallery is owned by Erik and Cornelia Thomsen, who live and work in New York. Erik has been a dealer in Japanese art since 1981; born to Danish parents and raised in Japan, he is fluent in Japanese and was the first foreigner to apprentice to an art dealer in Japan. They have three children, Julia, Anna, and Georg.