Hinges: Sakaki Hyakusen and the Birth of Nanga Painting

Hinges: Sakaki Hyakusen and the Birth of Nanga Painting is the first US exhibition focusing on the art of Sakaki Hyakusen (1697–1752), the founding father of the Nanga school of painting in Japan. The exhibition, together with a fully illustrated catalog and extensive public programs, will demonstrate Hyakusen’s pivotal role as a key figure in the transformation of Japanese painting of the eighteenth century. Highlighting the recent conservation of Mountain Landscape, a rare pair of six-panel landscape screens by Hyakusen, alongside Chinese landscape paintings by traditional masters and works by influential Nanga school painters, the exhibition promises to add significantly to public understanding of the art of conservation and important crosscultural and artistic connections emerging in Japan in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. With an introductory essay by curator Julia M. White, the fully illustrated catalog will include approximately fifty images, and three additional essays. A special chapter on conservation techniques and best practices in East Asian painting adds essential information on a contemporary area of interest.

Published in association with the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA).

Exhibition dates:
UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA): October 2, 2019–February 2, 2020