Art of Japan: Highlights from the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Hardcover

280 pages, 9 x 11 in.

150 color + 20 b/w illus.

Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2023

ISBN 978-087633-300-6

This richly illustrated volume includes more than one hundred highlights of Japanese art from the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, dating from the ancient Jōmon period to today. Among them are a Muromachi-period temple and a teahouse of the Taishō period, each the first of its kind in an American museum. The Edo and Meiji periods are represented by a wide range of works, including calligraphy, paintings, and prints by such luminaries as Hon’ami Kōetsu (1558–1637), Ike Taiga (1723–1776), and Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839–1892). In her introduction, Felice Fischer recounts the formation of the museum’s extensive collection of Japanese art, which began with the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition—the event that first opened American eyes to Japanese art and culture—and continues to be augmented with ceramics, textiles, lacquerware, metalwork, prints, paintings, and photographs by past and current practitioners. For anyone curious about Japanese art and its relevance to the art of the world today, this book provides an engaging roadmap from earliest times to the present.

Dr. Felice Fischer was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Rays, by the Japanese government for her contributions to cultural exchange in the field of art, and for deepening the appreciation of Japanese culture in the United States.