News Release
ATZ22022̲E̲E̲1February 22, 2022
Artizon Museum, Ishibashi Foundation

Transformation: Arts Crossing Borders in the 19th and20th Centuries
April 29 [Fri.] – July 10 [Sun.], 2022

ZAO Wou-Ki, Sunken City, 1954, Artizon Museum, Ishibashi Foundation©2022 by ProLitteris, Zurich & JASPAR, Tokyo C3760

The Artizon Museum, Ishibashi Foundation (Director: Ishibashi Hiroshi), presents Transformation:Arts Crossing Borders in the 19th and 20th Centuries.
Modern art as we know it began in the latter half of the nineteenth century, colored by theemergence of Manet and the Impressionists and many other avant-garde movements. The
background to those developments includes the increasing internationalization of the art world,with art-related people, works, and information crossing borders and continents. How, in that
context, have artists, from the modern period on, amidst influences and relationships ofunprecedented diversity, decided on and pursued their own artistic ideals and originality?
This exhibition addresses crossings and reforms—transformations—by surveying European,
Japanese, and American art from the mid-nineteenth century to the end of World War II. It
focuses on four painters, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Fujishima Takeji, Paul Klee, and Zao Wou-Ki,
who were stimulated to innovate in their art by contacts and conversations with different,
sometimes alien, presences. Through eighty works of art, including two new acquisitions, andreference materials, this exhibition spotlights their transformative approaches to their creativework.
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Exhibition Highlights
１． With crossing borders as our theme, the exhibition explores modernand contemporary art amidst globalization.
Internationalization has been gaining speed since the latter half of the nineteenth century,
influencing the art world in the process. Artists and their works have moved across borders,even between continents, and the spread of their knowledge and reputations has grown
livelier. What sort of works have been created in that environment, throughout the world? The
Artizon Museum collection, which includes works from many places in Europe, Japan, and theUnited States, is the foundation for this experiment in rethinking modern and contemporary art
from a geopolitical perspective.

2. Trace the border-crossing experiments, focusing on four painters andthe processes by which their subsequent work changed.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Fujishima Takeji, Paul Klee, and Zao Wou-Ki are four painters who wereactive at different times and in different regions. We examine the transformations that each of
their crossings brought about in their work. For Renoir, in addition to works from the Ishibashi
Foundation Collection, the exhibition displays six superb works loaned from collections inJapan.

３．Introducing Newly Acquired Works by Paul Klee and Robert Delaunay
In 2021, the Ishibashi Foundation added Paul Klee’s Friendly Place (1919) and Robert Delaunay’s
Windows on the City (1912) to its collection. 1912, when Windows on the City was created, wasalso the year when Klee, who was based in Munich at that time, acted on his longstanding
fascination with Delaunay through the introduction of the Blue Rider (der Blaue Reiter) and went
to visit him in Paris. These two works, which express these two artists’ relationship and its
influences, are being shown for the first time in this exhibition.

① Paul KLEE, Friendly Place, 1919, Artizon Museum, Ishibashi
Foundation② Robert DELAUNAY, Windows on the City, 1912,
Artizon Museum, Ishibashi Foundation

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Composition of the Exhibition
Part 1: Learning from History: Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Nineteenth-century France saw advances in research on the arts of the past as they had developed inEuropean countries. As Albert André has reported, Renoir said, “A painter must learn in art museums.” Hesaw value in visiting museums in many countries and engaging in conversations with the arts produced byhis predecessors. This section addresses the creative work of Renoir, who addressed his search to produce
paintings that would satisfy his ideals, to the end of his life.

③

Pierre-Auguste RENOIR, Copy after the Painting by Rubens "The Council ofGods", 1861, The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo
Donated by Mr. Ryuzaburo Umehara④ Pierre-Auguste RENOIR, Woman After Bath,1896, Tokyo Fuji Art MuseumⒸTokyo Fuji Art Museum Image Archives / DNPartcom

Part 2: Experiencing Europe: Fujishima Takeji, Fujita Tsuguharu, and Kosugi Misei
From the Meiji period on, the adoption of Western oil painting techniques has steadily progressed in Japan.
The experience of travel to Europe, of setting foot on those alien lands, of directly encountering their living
traditions has formed the consciousness and attitudes of painters towards their work in many directions.
This section explores Japanese Western-style painters’ experiences of Western Europe and what cameafterwards through Fujishima Takeji and two other artists.

Upper left
⑤ FUJISHIMA Takeji, Sunrise over the Eastern Sea, 1932,
Artizon Museum, Ishibashi Foundation
Upper right⑥ FUJITA Tsuguharu, Still Life with a Cat, 1939-40,
Artizon Museum, Ishibashi Foundation© Fondation Foujita / ADAGP, Paris & JASPAR, Tokyo, 2022
C3757
Lower left
⑦ KOSUGI Misei (Hoan), Yamasachi-hiko, 1917,
Artizon Museum, Ishibashi Foundation

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Part 3: Shifting Images: Paul Klee
The Swiss-German artist Paul Klee was influenced early in his career by contemporary French art. After
World War I, as a master at the Bauhaus and as a pioneer of Surrealism, his image as an artist changed
repeatedly. That diversity reflects the transfigurations of art-related connections between wartime
Germany and France and also between Europe and America.

⑧ Paul KLEE, Arrival of the Aerial Dragon, 1927,Artizon Museum, Ishibashi Foundation⑨ Paul KLEE, Protectress, 1932,Artizon Museum, Ishibashi Foundation

Part 4: Beyond East and West: Zao Wou-Ki
The painter Zao Wou-Ki, who was from China, moved to Paris immediately after World War II. Afterestablishing his own style under Paul Klee’s influence, he changed his creative vocabulary through contact
with a variety of contemporary trends, including abstract paintings in France and American Abstract
Expressionism. He is a prime example of an artist whose work transcends national borders, beyond Eastand West.

⑩ ZAO Wou-Ki, Sunken City, 1954,
Artizon Museum, Ishibashi Foundation©2022 by ProLitteris, Zurich & JASPAR, Tokyo C3760⑪ ZAO Wou-Ki, Untitled, 1980,
Artizon Museum, Ishibashi Foundation©2022 by ProLitteris, Zurich & JASPAR, Tokyo C3760

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Exhibition Overview
Exhibition title:

Transformation: Arts Crossing Borders in the 19th and 20th Centuries

Organized byArtizon Museum, Ishibashi Foundation

Venue:

Artizon Museum, 5F Gallery

Exhibition period:

April 29 [Fir.] – July 10 [Sun.], 2022

Opening hours:

10:00 – 18:00 (until 20:00 on Fridays except April 29)*Last entry 30 minutes before closing.

Closed:Mondays

Admission (incl.tax):

Timed entry system(Online booking starts from March 1, 2022)
Online ticket: 1,200 yen
Same day ticket (on sale at museum): 1,500 yen
Students: Free entry (Advance online booking required.)*This admission fee gives the visitor access to the concurrent exhibitions.
*Same day tickets on sale at the museum are available only for time slotsthat have not reached full capacity.
*Advance booking is not required for children up to junior high school age.
*The exhibition details are subject to change without notice.

Curators:

SHIMAMOTO Hideaki, UEDA Anna

Concurrent Exhibitions：Photography and Painting: From Cézanne

Shibata Toshio and Suzuki Risaku

Jam Session: The Ishibashi Foundation Collection × Shibata Toshio × Suzuki Risaku
Selections from the Ishibashi Foundation Collection

Special Section

Learning: Prints by Picasso and Miró

Artizon Museum
1-7-2 Kyobashi Chuo-ku Tokyo 104-0031 Japan
Tel. Domestic: 050-5541-8600 International: +81 47-316-2772 (Hello Dial)
https://www.artizon.museum/en/
Directions: 5 minutes on foot from JR Tokyo Station (Yaesu Central Exit); Tokyo Metro Ginza Line Kyobashi
Station (No.6, 7 Exit); Tokyo Metro Ginza Line, Tozai Line, Toei Asakusa Line Nihombashi Station (B1 Exit)

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