Recent Acquisitions of Japanese Paintings

February 15 – April 11, 2004

The year 2004 will be an exciting year for Japanese art lovers. Accompanying the re-installation of the Japanese art gallery (Gallery 9), we will open an exhibition highlighting recent acquisitions of Japanese secular and religious paintings from the collections of Dr. Jesse L. Greenstein, Dr. George W. Housner, Colonel William Johnston, Patricia Ayers Gallucci, and Gail Melhado.

Most of the scroll paintings and screens in the exhibition date to the Edo period (1600-1868 AD) and depict a wide range of subjects, including ukiyo-e (“floating world images”) of beautiful women, legendary characters and natural scenes. The exhibition will also feature Buddhist devotional images, such as a rare painting of the bodhisattva Kujaku Bosatsu, dating to the early Edo period. One of the highlights of the exhibition will be a two-panel Japanese Kano-school screen painting of cranes on gold leaf, early Edo Genroku period, c. 1700. The screen was given to the Museum in October 2003 by Gail Melhado.

This event is co-sponsored by the Chinese LA Daily News, and is partially funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. The Awards ceremony is by invitation only.