The year 2009 marks the 10th anniversary of the death of Higashiyama Kaii (1908-1999), known as the "national painter of the Showa period". In the anniversary year, the Yamatane Museum presents an exhibition that surveys Kaii's oeuvre, as seen in the Yamatane collection, and introduces other Nihonga painters active in the Showa era.

Japan during the Showa era was a place of massive change, with its experiences during World War II followed by its post-war recovery and dynamic growth. Rapid modernization and democratization meant that new values and views emerged one after the other. It was a complex time of competing concepts, whether Japan vs. the west, traditional vs. modern, or the spiritual vs. the material. The value systems that reflected a new world order influenced the aesthetics of the modern Nihonga painters and brought about a diverse range of styles. Amidst the diversity, Kaii and his fellow Showa painters actively sought out and employed previously unseen materials and methods, as they developed the ways and means of a new Nihonga with an all the freer imagination and creativity.

This exhibition features 19 works by Kaii from the Yamatane collection, along with works by his Tokyo Bijutsu Gakko classmates, Hashimoto Meiji, Kato Eizo, and Yamada Shingo. The exhibition is further enhanced by a display of paintings by members of the Mikokai group whose paintings were the talk of Showa painting circles, such as Morita Sai, Yamamoto Kyujin, Sugiyama Yasushi, and Takayama Tatsuo.

This exhibition is the second exhibition commemorating the opening of our new museum facilities. The galleries will be adorned by an impressive display of works created by Showa painters on commission from the Imperial Household Agency for the decoration of the New Imperial Palace completed in 1968. The exhibition features Higashiyama Kaii's Rising Tide (1970), a massive 9- meter-wide framed wall painting, and is the first public display in 12 years of four works, namely Uemura Shoko's Flowers and Birds of Japan (1970); Hashimoto Meiji's Cherry Tree in Morning Sun (1970), Yamaguchi Hoshun's Maple Tree (Preparatory Drawing for Panel at the New Palace, 4:1 scale, 1967), and Yasuda Yukihiko's Poems in the Manyoshu (1970).

We hope that these Nihonga paintings will provide visitors with a sense of the values and aesthetics of the Showa period, a time that allowed each artist's unique creativity to achieve a full flowering.

Organized by: Yamatane Museum of Art and The Yomiuri Shimbun