Next summer the College of DuPage’s Cleve Carney Museum of Art in Glen Ellyn will host “Hokusai and Ukiyo-e: The Floating World, Artworks from the Chiossone Collection,” a collection of renowned Japanese art featuring works from the Edoardo Chiossone Museum of Oriental Art in Genoa, Italy.
The star of the summer 2025 exhibit is Katsushika Hokusai, a Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period who lived from 1760 to 1849.
Ukiyo-e means “images of the floating world,” COD’s McAninch Arts Center director Diana Martinez said. A woodblock artist, Hokusai is best known for the print series “Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji,” which includes the iconic “The Great Wave off Kanagawa.”
Prints by Edo artist Utagawa Kunimasa will be on display as part of “Hokusai and Ukiyo-e: The Floating World, Artworks from the Chiossone Collection,” an art exhibit being presented at the College of DuPage’s Cleve Carney Museum of Art in Glen Ellyn in summer 2025. (Edoardo Chiossone Museum of Oriental Art of Genoa)
“He’s a very special artist because of the number of paintings he painted throughout his life,” Martinez said. “He really captured that Edo era. When you look at his work, it gives a great insight into what that era looked like.”
Hokusai lived during the time of shogun warriors, geishas and the country’s longest period of peace, she said.
“During this time, (Japan was) were very isolated from the world. It was an era of a lot of order and class structure. It was a time of art,” she said. “He’s sort of the father of manga and anime art. When you look at the anime cartoons that the kids love so much and Japanese comic books and look at some of Hokusai’s works, it’s so similar. It’s fascinating. He had a huge influence.”
As his artwork spread beyond Japan, his influence and popularity grew. He was said to have influenced Van Gogh, Martinez said.
Hokusai painted “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” when he was 60.
“He had hoped to live to be 100. In Japanese culture, when you’re 60 is when you feel you’ve really come into your own,” Martinez said. “Which I think is such a lovely concept, that that is when you’re really at your prime. It’s interesting that that is when he reached the height of his career.”
In addition to 10 original Hokusai artworks, the exhibit will include about 40 others done by Edo-era artists popular at the time as well as prints, instruments fand Japanese scrolls from the period.
Martinez and Justin Witte, director and curator of the Cleve Carney Museum of Art, are working with the exhibition producer MondoMostre in Italy to bring the exhibit to Glen Ellyn.
“We’re super excited to connect to a new culture,” she said. “Every time we do a show, we do more than hang the art on the walls. It’s about exploring history and the period and celebrating a famous international artist and the impact they’ve had on the world. But you can’t help but dive into the culture of a different country and the Japanese culture is so rich in tradition and heritage and interesting characters that we get to explore, so I’m really excited about that.”
After recent exhibits featuring the works of Frida Kahlo and Andy Warhol, they wanted to explore something totally different, she said.
“Hokusai is internationally world-renown. He was an influential artist — not just because he was known, but the influence he had on other artists, which we find very important in terms of being an educational facility and looking at the influence an artist can have,” she said.
“(It) is a cultural opportunity – there’s the art, there’s the interesting history of a person, because we do the biographical, educational timeline and the impact they had on the art world. Is there something to culturally dig into in terms of more than just the art? And this Edo period of Japan is so deep. I think about the events that we could do … the educational tie-ins — it’s just great.”
No dates for the show have been set but ticket prices are set at $12 to $25. More information will be available at atthemac.org.
Annie Alleman is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun.
Annie Alleman , 2024-06-19 22:55:37
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