Exhibition of Sato Ichiro and His Former Students; 

This time 38 Ginza galleries have cooperated to stage exhibitions with the common theme MODERN art Starting With GINZA. By holding the exhibitions at the same time across 38 galleries in Ginza we would like to celebrate modernism in Nippon Art.

Ginza is one of the most glamorous places in the world and there are more than 100 galleries located here. Historically Ginza became known for the latest fashions and trends in Japan owing to its location close to the railway between Tokyo and Yokohama, the first port to open after the end of Japan’s isolation. This reputation continues to this day. It is right in the heart of Tokyo and home to Japan’s oldest department stores and famed for its stylish boutiques and chic coffeehouses but it still retains its local character and people here in Ginza are very warm, kind and friendly. You may not expect to find such a strong local community in the centre of a global city.

Japan’s modernization started during the Meiji period (1868), when the feudal system ended. Japan was closed to foreign countries for over 260 years under the isolation policy and so European oil painting was not known. However, once introduced, it did not take long for Japanese artists to learn oil paintings from Europe. It was in Ginza that Japanese artists who had mastered these new techniques exhibited this art form for the first time in Japan. Nippon Art developed, melding traditional perspectives of beauty with new techniques from abroad.

More and more people from all over the world became interested in Nippon Art during the modernist period. We would like to introduce a pioneer of oil painting in Japan, Takahashi Yuichi, and 19 present-day artists who were influenced by him. You can feel the deep beauty in modernist Nippon Art and its close relevance to contemporary Nippon Art today.

Takahashi Yuichi was born into a samurai family in 1828, during the Edo period under the feudal military government. He is noted for his pioneering work in developing the Western-style art movement in late 19^th century Japan. He was interested in art from childhood and started his career with an apprenticeship at the Kano School but later he became fascinated with Western oil painting. In 1866 Yuichi went to Yokohama to study under the English artist and cartoonist Charles Wirgman who was so impressed with his talent that he sponsored his participation in the Paris World Exhibition of 1867.

We have displayed a print of his masterpiece Salmon here.

There are many Japanese painters who adopted Western oil painting after the Meiji restoration but Yuichi is said to be the first “Western Japanese Painter” in Japan because he had a comprehensive training in Western oil painting techniques but he used this technical foundation to express the daily life of Japan from a Japanese point of view. His name “Yuichi” in Japanese sounds the same as “Only Oil” (油一). This was not the name he was given at birth but one he took later in life. It shows his devotion to oil painting. 

In this exhibition, An Homage to Takahashi Yuichi, Professor Sato Ichiro and his former 19 students use the special oil paint, named Yuichi, developed by Tokyo Fine Art University Technique Materials Laboratory and HOLBEIN Works Ltd. Yuichi oil was designed specifically for the Japanese climate. It is tolerant of the severe heat and humidity in Japan and retains its original properties that is long lasting clear and bright colour, even under big fluctuations in temperature.

I hope all of you enjoy seeing the evolution of Nippon Art in this exhibition!