Denchu Hirakushi: A Retrospective

Hours: 9:30 a.m.- 5:00 p.m.

• Entry is permitted thirty minutes before the galleries are closed.

Closed: Mondays

Admission:

Adults: 900(700)yen
Students (College or senior high school): 700(500)yen

Students (Elementary or junior high school): 400(300)yen

• Prices in parentheses are for advance ticket and groups of more than 20 persons.
• Persons with disability, one person accompanying them are admitted free of charge.

Organaized by Mie Prefectural Art Museum, Committee for the retrospective of Denchu Hirakushi, The Asahi Simbun Company

Subsidized by The Cultural Foundation of Okada, Mie Prefectural Art Museum Assistance Foundation

Denchu Hirakushi(1872-1979), born in Shitsuki-county(currently Ibara-city), Okayama, was adopted at the age of ten by the Hirakushi family in Numakuma-county(currently Fukuyama-city), Hiroshima, and assumed the surname Hirakushi. Hirakushi had cultivated his interest for arts around the age of seventeen. After training in Osaka and Nara, he moved to Tokyo in 1897 to study under Koun Takamura(1852-1934) and his disciple, Unkai Yonehara(1869-1925).

Hirakushi soon became acquainted with a Zen monk, Kazan Nishiyama(1837-1917), whose humanity and Rinzai Buddhism affected him greatly. The other important figure was Tenshin Okakura(1863-1913), a representative art scholar of Meiji era, whose guidance became a lige-long polestar for Hirakushi. Having built his own thought based on their guidance, and conducted research in western clay statues, Hirakushi created works with profound spirituality for the exhibitions of the resurrected Nihon Bijutsu-in(Japanese Art Institute) of the Taisho era.

In the Showa era, Hirakushi studied coloring techniques and Yosegi Zukuri(joined-block construction) of traditional sculptures, and pursued realism in his works. A masterpiece of his lifework, Kagamijishi(1958), which took him twenty years to accomplish, is the culmination of his challenge in his colored sculptures.

Hirakushi's works vary not only in genre, such as Buddhist sculptures, portraits and statues with children theme, but also in techniques. His long-lasting career, too, ranged between westernized style and Japanese pre-modern style. Many of his works throughout his long career directly reflect the history of modern Japanese sculptures.

According to the archievement of recent studies of Hirakushi and other modern Japanese sculptures, this exhibition focuses on problems concerned with Hirakushi's works, such as realism, relational beween wood sculptures and clay statues, color finishing, multiples, as well as others. Therefor, we hope you can take a closer look into the true figure of Denchu Hirakushi.