Masterpieces of Yamamoto Hosui to be featured at Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu

An exhibition featuring the oeuvre of yoga (Western-style painting) artist Hosui Yamamoto*, who hailed from present-day Gifu Prefecture, will be held at the prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu this fall as a part of National Cultural Festival 2024, a yearly national event to promote cultural activities in Japan. The exhibition will be held in cooperation with The Museum of the Imperial Collections, Sannomaru Shozokan (Tokyo), which houses a great number of Hosui’s masterpiece paintings.

In Special Cooperation with Sannomaru Shozokan, The Museum of the Imperial Collections
PARALLEL MODE: Hosui YAMAMOTO and his Diverse Artistic Oeuvre

Sep 27 (Fri) – Dec 8 (Sun), 2024

Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu
(Gifu city)

*See outline below for details

Hosui YAMAMOTO (1850-1906)

Hosui, who was born in the Mino Province (southern Gifu Prefecture) in the late Edo period, graduated from the Engineering College of Fine Arts (Japan’s first public art school) in Tokyo where he studied under Antonio Fontanesi (1818-82; Italian painter who introduced European oil painting techniques to Japan) before traveling to France in 1878. In Paris, he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts (School of Fine Arts) under academic artist Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904). Having returned to Japan, he engaged in activities that set the foundation for the development of Western-style painting in the country. He started a private art school and later, in 1889, established the Meiji Bijutsu-kai (Meiji Fine Arts Society; first association in Japan for Western-style painters) with his peers. He is also known to have served as a war painter in the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars.

“PARALLEL MODE: Hosui YAMAMOTO and his Diverse Artistic Oeuvre,” the exhibition set to open on Sept. 27, 2024, will showcase Hosui’s masterpieces including “Nude” (1880; see top photo), which was finished during his stay in France, and is said to be one of the earliest nude paintings by a Japanese artist completed with a high level of perfection. Housed at the Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu, the painting was designated as an important cultural property of Japan in 2014.

Paintings borrowed from the Sannomaru Shozokan include war paintings such as “The Sentry Under the Moon at Tangjiatun” (1906) depicting soldiers bivouacked during the Russo-Japanese War, which was Hosui’s last dedication to the Imperial Household, and “Records of the War, Meiji 27-28” (1894-95) documenting occurrences during the Sino-Japanese War.

The “Eruption of Mount Bandai” (1888) depicting the major volcanic disaster of that year in Fukushima Prefecture, which will also go on display, was rendered based on a sketch Hosui made of the eruption on the scene as a newspaper correspondent.

The exhibition runs through Dec. 8, 2024.