15 August - 13 September 1992 Hours: 9:30a.m.- 5:00 p.m. Admission: charged The art criticisms in modern Japan has its roots in those by Ogai Mori and Tenshin Okakura in the Meiji Era. But compared to Europe, its history is short and there have been no established description of it. Though there were already a number of remarkable art criticisms published mainly in the art magazines by artists, aesthetes and art historians before the Second World War, it is after the War that the art criticisms in Japan went into the most active stage corresponding to the flourishing of art exhibitions and art journalism as well as to a great variety of the activities by artists. Teiichi Hijikata (1904-1980) is one of the art critics who represents the Japanese art criticism after the War. Teiichi Hijikata, in his youth, studied aesthetics and wrote poems, being one of the foundation members of the poem magazine Rekitei. Publishing poems, fairytales, and literary criticisms in the magazines, his concern began to move from the aesthetics to the art criticism. And from 1951, he participated in the management of the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, for a long time. Having already started to write art criticism in the latter half of 1930's, after the War, especia11y from the latter half of 1940's to 1960's, Hijikata published a great number of art criticisms dealing with contemporary art, in which the all sorts of new experiments were being made. He also organized a lot of exhibitions, which shows his active participation in the art history after the War. This exhibition is organized to offer one of the opportunities to investigate what a part Hijikata's art criticism played in the unfolding of the post-War Japanese art and in general what a meaning the art criticism has from the viewpoint of cultural history by showing artists and their works that Hijikata discussed. Therefore this is the exhibition of the Japanese post-war art based on the viewpoint of art criticism of Teiichi Hijikata as an art critic, in which 132 oil paintings, 42 prints and 18 sculptures are included. We would like to express our deep gratitude to the museums and the collectors, who have kindly lent us the works for display and to all the parties, who have offered their cooperation. |