PAGEANT OF JAPANESE ART

A comprehensive survey in six volumes covering all branches and all periods. The selection: well-balanced, made by national authorities. The reproductions: lavish, accurate and plentiful. The text: enlightening and appreciative. Size: folio.

EDITED BY THE STAFF OF THE TOKYO NATIONAL MUSEUM

PUBLISHED BY TŌTO BUNKA COMPANY, LTD.

Vol. I, PAINTING (1) - In preparation.

Vol. II, PAINTING (2) - Now available.

Vol. III, 'SCULPTURE' - Now available.

Vol. IV, METAL WORK & CERAMICS - In preparation.

Vol. V, LACQUER ART & TEXILES - In preparation.

Vol. VI, ARCHITECTURE & GARDENS - In preparation.

16.00 per volume, post paid

WELL PLANNED - SURPASSES ANY PREDECESSOR

"I can give my word that the 'Pageant of Japanese Art' is well planned, that it surpasses any predecessor of its kind. As for its reproductions... I can safely say this much - they will prove the best to be had in present Japan."

Tokujiro Kanamori, Chief Librarian

National Diet Library of Japan

VOLUME II - NOW AVAILABLE

PAINTING (2)

Covers paintings for the period 1334 - 1867. Contains 50 plates (10 in color), 70 illustrations, and over 100 pages of text. A remarkable achievement worthy of the editors' ambitious plans.

VOLUME III - NOW AVAILABLE

SCULPTURE

Devoted chiefly to the pre-eminent Buddhist works from the 6th to 14th centuries. Also includes archaeological icons and terra-cotta tomb figures, masks, etc. Contains 53 plates (3 in color), 120 illustrations and over 100 pages of text.

January 22, 1963

Mrs. Georgia O'Keeffe
Abiquiu
New Mexico

Dear Mrs. O'Keeffe;

Please excuse for my negligence in writing to you for so long.
How have you been? As to me, I have been here in the United States
almost five years now. It was a great disappointment that during
this period, I have not had an opportunity yet to have a pleasure
of meeting you. However, I have seen your work in the museums,
in the publications, and whenever I look at your work, I have
a great respect for your work.

I appreciate your help in many ways given to me while I am
in this country. I have been working on my way hard. I have
had my one-man shows nine times in New York, Washington, D.C.,
Boston, and have participated in important international shows
in Europe. I am now working on my sculpture and right now
I am participating in the group show in one of the galleries
in New York City. I would be more than happy if you have a
chance to see my work there in Green Gallery.

I am scheduled to participate in various shows in Europe
this year.

Living in New York is a very competent one, with lots of
tension, and I sometimes feel very nostalgic to the place you
live. I have a great adoration for nature.

If you have a chance to visit New York, I would very much
like to see you. Looking forward to such occasions,

53 East 19th St.
New York 3, N.Y.

I discovered Kusama's art in Washington, several years ago, and at once felt that I was in the presence of an original talent. Those early paintings, without beginning, without end, without form, without definition, seemed to actualize the infinity of space. Now with perfect consistency, she creates forms that proliferate like mycelium and seal the consciousness in their white integument. It is an autonomous art, the most authentic type of super reality. This image of strange beauty presses on our organs of perception with terrifying persistence.

SIR HERBERT READ

13 March 1964

YAYOI KUSAMA, Japanese artist, will have the first American showing of her paintings at the Zoe Dusanne Gallery, 1303 Lakeview Pl., in an exhibit that opens with a preview this Sunday, continues through December 28.

14

Sun., Dec. 8, 1957 Seattle Post-Intelligencer PICTORIAL REVIEW

## Japanese Artist

THE world of minutiae is exhaustively explored and exploited in Yayoi Kusama's paintings, on exhibition at the Dusanne Gallery until the end of this month. The show is Miss Kusama's first one-man exhibition in America. For the occasion, she has made the journey from Japan to Seattle.

Her paintings have something of the tenuous, minor tones associated with Japanese music and the subtleties of a Japanese garden.

Miss Kusama is unquestionably an artist — a young artist, whose techniques are still unfolding. Her problem will be to express the depths of her own personality and still to speak through the idioms of her time.

Her most recent work indicates a devolvement in the right direction, toward integration and a sureness of handling materials, yet without loss of the key to her own inner door.

Working with an unusual

method of blending pastels and water, Miss Kusama achieves textures most nearly like those of tempera or gouache. The pastel colors, however, have a different quality than paint colors, tending sometimes to oversweetness, particularly in the shades of peacock blues, purples and shimmering pinks.

Of the larger paintings, we liked best "Laughing Bones," an arrangement of fantastic, floating shapes against a dark background, and "Old Animal," with its glowing sun encased in a massive, cold blue form. Several of the smaller works are beautiful, but one must study them closely in order to realize the intricacies of their microscopic worlds.

Sunday, December 8, 1957

The Seattle Times 63

Look And Listen:

Paintings To Disturb And Intrigue On Display

By John Voorhees

The disturbing and intriguing paintings now at the Zoe Dusanne Gallery, the work of Miss Yayoi Kusama, are not likely to please the majority of art-fanciers. And those that are pleased may have some trouble explaining just why they feel that way.

This is the young (28) Japanese artist's first American show and one of the reasons it is so intriguing is that it is unlike anyone else's work. Miss Yayoi does not paint mountains nor sunsets nor traditional Japanese-style scrolls nor still lifes nor the impressionistic abstracts currently so fashionable.

This, of course, raises the question: Well, what does she paint?

CERTAINLY THE 26 watercolors and pastels amount to a very personal statement by the artist. They are paintings that cannot be dismissed if one gives them attention and thought. Locked in each one is some thought, some idea pursued by the artist. And at times it seems permanently locked there, too.

Her technique certainly recalls a delicacy and patience often connected with classical Oriental art. Her use of color comes closer to Western approach, however, but it is applied with Oriental subtlety.

There is a certain amount of mysticism in the paintings, too, and in comparison with most of the painting seen in galleries here Miss Kusama's paintings could either be remains from some ancient, long-forgotten ritual—or messages from outer space. No two people will get the same feeling from them.

This reviewer, for instance, was particularly drawn toward a series of small paintings with colorful, delicate centers that seem to be breaking through a darkly luminous border.

STRANGE LITTLE lines, dots, patterns and just plain "squiggles" appear on the paper and the paintings have the "feel" of nature (undoubt-

edly helped by knowledge that Miss Kusama favors titles like "Flower," "Japanese Lacquer Tree," "Spirit of Tree," "Secret Hiding Place of the Tree" and "Petal"). A literal translation of the titles should not be sought, however.

Miss Kusama's paintings also produce some feelings of impatience — impatience with the work involved in seeing them, in puzzling over them as well as curious impatience to see what Miss Kusama's painting will be like in, say 10 years time.

Will she have received widespread attention by then and will her current painting vocabulary be more comprehensible than now? Or will these paintings proved to have been the basis for even greater work?

Anyone interested in art should make an effort to see the show, on display through December 28, for it is certainly an out-of-the-ordinary one.

day in Cornish School, one of a number of complimentary Cornish Faculty recitals.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Wed., Dec. 18, 1957 S★

21