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32 ASIAN ART Online Sales / Gallery Shows ONLINE SALES


FROM ARTIST TO WOODBLOCK: Japanese Prints Online


Christie’s Online, 15 to 22 June


Christie ’s next online sale dedicated to Japanese woodblock prints includes works by many of the most important Japanese artists from the 18th through to the 20th century, and will be open for bidding from 15 to 22 June on christies.com. Iconic prints by Katsushika Hokusai, Kitagawa Utamaro,


Utagawa Hiroshige and Suzuki Harunobu are included, providing an opportunity to acquire iconic works by these artists. Highlights from the sale include Hokusai’s Rainstorm Below the Summit, from the


artist’s Mount Fuji series (est £20/30,000), which is also included in the British Museum’s exhibition dedicated to Hokusai. Estimates for the online sale range from £500 up to around £20,000.


GIUSEPPE TUCCI’S TIBET Photographs From The 1930S Expeditions


LAST SUMMER during a trip to beautiful Marche, a region in central Italy, Renzo Freschi decided to stop over in Macerata, the birthplace of both Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) – a missionary and scientist who was received at the Chinese imperial court, still considered a great scholar – and Giuseppe Tucci (1894-1984), the most important Italian Tibetologist. As early as the 1970s, Tucci’s


KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI (1760-1849) Rainstorm Below the Summit, from the series Tirty-six Views of Mount Fuji Woodblock print, signed Hokusai aratame Iitsu hitsu, circa 1830-5, horizontal oban, 25 x 37.2 cm, est £20/30,000


UTAGAWA HIROSHIGE (1797–1858) Meguro Drum Bridge and Sunset Hill, from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo Woodblock print, signed Hiroshige ga, 1857, vertical oban 37.3 x 25.3 cm, est £2,200/2,800


UTAGAWA KUNISADA (1786–1864) A young woman adjusting her hairpins, from the series Shadow Pictures of a Benevolent Reign Woodblock print, signed Kochoro Kunisada ga, 1843-47, vertical oban, 35.5 x 24.4 cm, est £1,200/1,500


MINGEI ART OF JAPAN including works from the Martha Longenecker Collection


Christie’s online, 22 - 29 June


Tis June Christie’s Japanese Art department will present an online sale dedicated to Mingei Art of Japan, which includes works from the Martha Longenecker Collection. Te sale opens for bidding from 22 until 29 June. On offer are works by major Japanese studio ceramicists including Hamada Shoji, Shimaoka Tatsuzo and Kawai Kanjiro, all owned by Martha Longenecker. Also part of her collection are works by American ceramicists including Gertrud & Otto Natzler, Laura Andreson, Harrison McIntosh and Martha Longenecker herself, as well as furniture and design including chairs by Charles and Ray Eames and a paper lamp by Isamu Noguchi. In addition to the Longenecker collection are ceramics by British artists including Bernard and Janet Leach, Michael Cardew and William Marshall, from a private English collection. Estimates throughout the sale range from US$400/600 to US$12/18,000. Martha Longenecker’s


lifelong career in art was multifaceted; she was an artist, educator and museum director. She founded the Mingei International Museum in San Diego in May 1978, inspired by the teachings of the revered 20th century Japanese scholar, Soetsu Yanagi, who coined the term Mingei,Min meaning all people and Gei, for art. Longenecker’s first direct


contact with Mingei came during the summer of 1952, when she met Soetsu Yanagi, Japanese potter Shoji Hamada and British potter Bernard Leach, who were on a world tour lecturing and demonstrating pottery to local craftsmen.


books had inspired Freschi’s trips to India and Nepal and in Macerata he had hoped to be able to find information about the man, not just the scholar. Before reaching Macerata he had stopped by at Elcito, a handful of houses perched on the mountainside at an elevation of 800 metres, with a breathtaking view. Ambling along the three narrow streets of the village he had seen on the walls of some houses the photographs of a group of Tibetan monks in their monastic robes and with traditional musical instruments. Te information he gleaned from three elderly people he met was scanty, but he was quite surprised to find traces of Tibet in such a remote place. But chance, or destiny, proved to be even more unexpected when, in Macerata, he was told that there was a lawyer who was fond of Tucci and that indeed he had brought Tibetan monks to Elcito. Gianfranco Borgani, a Tucci


A selection of works from the Martha Longenecker collection © Christie’s Images Limited 2017


With an unprecedented gift


of a 20-year leasehold, Longenecker oversaw the design and construction of the original Mingei International Museum, which opened 5 May 1978. Shoji Hamada had approved the use of the name Mingei believing Longenecker fully understood its meaning and importance. In 1996, she oversaw the


Martha Longenecker © Longenecker estate/Christie’s Images Limited 2017


In 1955, San Diego State


invited Martha to develop the school’s ceramics programme. During a sabbatical, she spent time in Japan, working and learning from Hamada and his main apprentice, Tatsuzo Shimaoka, both of whom have been named National Treasures of Japan. Following her first visit to Japan, Martha invited several international ‘living treasures’, including Hamada and Shimaoka, to lecture, exhibit and demonstrate their art for her San Diego State art students. Te Mingei evolved from Martha’s vision to establish an organisation which would facilitate these cultural exchanges.


ASIAN ART SUMMER QUARTER 2017


museum’s move to a 41,000-square-foot home on the Plaza de Panama in Balboa Park. In 2003, she led the opening of a satellite Mingei International Museum in Escondido, transforming a former 21,000 square-foot JC Penney store into a state-of-the-art museum. Longenecker announced the establishment of her most recent non-profit organistion, the Mingei Legacy Resource Foundation in October 2013. Tis foundation will serve as


a vessel to support Martha’s commitment to creating lasting cultural exchanges. She received a number of honours including the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette, awarded to her by the Emperor of Japan for her contributions to transcultural artistic understanding.


researcher, had known Tucci’s wife, and she had allowed him to scan some photographs taken during her husband’s expeditions. In 2004, Borgani had organised a series of events on the occasion of the 20 years since the death of the celebrated scholar, one of which was an exhibition of


A monk playing a silver covered shell bugle, Tsang, Tibet, photo by Felice Boffa, 1939


those very pictures. Tis exhibition was born


from that chance encounter. Giuseppe Tucci was the most illustrious Italian scholar of Tibetan art and religion. His numerous books – both travel narratives and academic studies – are known all over the world and continue to be essential in order to understand the attraction exerted on the West by this extraordinary and profound culture. Between 1928 and 1956 Tucci made eight expeditions to Tibet and six to Nepal, translated the


fundamental religious texts of Tibetan Buddhism, and in 1957 founded the Museo Nazionale di Arte Orientale in Rome.


Te exhibition comprises 20


black-and-white photographs taken in the 1930s during his exploration trips to Ladakh (India) and Tibet. Tese images show the majestic landscapes of the ‘Roof of the World’, but also the fascination of centuries-old customs. • Until 10 June at Renzo Freschi, via Gesu 17, Milan, www.renzofreschi.com


Giuseppe Tucci reading a manuscript, Kathmandu, 1954


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