The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) presents Visions of the Orient: Western Women Artists in Asia 1900–1940 an exhibition on view through January 15, 2012.
Lilian Miller Rain Blossoms, Japan, 1928 Woodblock print 9 ¾ x 14 5/8 in. Scripps College, Claremont, CA Gift of Mrs. Simon Bolivar Buckner
Visions of the Orient features 125 prints and paintings by female Western artists exploring Asian cultures between 1900 and 1940. The exhibition focuses on the work of four artists: Helen Hyde (1868–1919), Bertha Lum (1869–1954), Elizabeth Keith (1887–1956), and Lilian Miller (1895–1942), all of whom trained as painters but, while living in Japan, also designed woodblock prints.
By investigating the intersection of American art, East Asia, and the woodblock print movement, Visions of the Orient explores the various ways that “the orient” served as a liberating professional space for these female artists and as a place of creative inspiration. Visions draws on but also questions some of the more pessimistic assumptions about Orientalism and gendered Orientalism developed by scholars over the past 20 years. The exhibition also explores Western, and largely American, engagement with Japan and Asia at a time when attitudes of paternalistic exoticism at the turn of the century grew into friction and hostility in the 1930s.
In addition, the exhibition highlights the collaboration between these four artists and their Japanese teachers and colleagues in the production of woodblock prints. Along with woodblock prints and rare paintings and drawings by these artists, original woodblocks, proof prints, and tools give viewers a deeper perspective on the lives and creative processes of the artists.
The exhibition is organized by the Pacific Asia Museum with the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Arts and curated by Dr. Kendall H. Brown, Professor of Asian Art History at California State University, Long Beach. – nmwa.org