Soga Shohaku
|
13 Maly - 14 June 1998 Hours: 9:30a.m.- 5:00 p.m. Admission: charged |
|
This exhibition presents an overall view of the work of Soga Shohaku (1730-1781), a leading figure in the eighteenth-century Kyoto art world whose unusual gifts have won him an increasing reputation in recent years. Born into a merchant family, Shohaku is said to have studied with Takada Keiho, a painter unusual enough to be included in an eighteenth-century work entitled Lives of Modern Eccentrics :II. In his late twenties, he began to use the surname Soga as a sign that he considered himself in the direct line of the Soga school of the Muromachi period, and even, occasionally, signed himself Dasoku Jussei-Mago-i.e., “Tenth-Generation Descendant of Dasoku”, the latter being an important figure in the development of the school. Scholarly investigations since the 1970s have uncovered works that have been confirmed as Shohaku’s in various districts, backing up the tradition that he went around areas such as Ise (present Mie prefecture) and Banshu (present southwestern Hyogo prefecture), producing paintings for patrons there. Until then, his reputation had for a long period remained consistently higher abroad than at home in Japan, where he had been almost totally ignored. Interest in Shohaku in other countries was particularly stimulated by the large number of works taken home to the United States by Fenollosa and Bigelow after their stays in Japan during the Meiji era. By now, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has some fifty paintings, a body of work indispensable in any study of the artist. This exhibition in the largest review of Shohaku’s work ever organized so far, placing on display a total of around eighty works, among them items from five co11ections in the U.S., including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Some Of the best-known Shohaku paintings preserved in Japan, and others that have never before been shown in public. In two parts, devoted respectively to tracing the chronological development of his art and demonstrating its many, widely differing aspects, it throws his personality into bold relief-fully conveying, we believe, the essence of its daring, uninhibited spirit. We would like to express our deep gratitude to the museums and private collectors who have lent valuable works from their collections for the exhibition, as well as to all those others who have given their kind cooperation. |
|
List and images of Shouhaku's works in the Collection of the Mie Prefectural Art Museum |