SYDNEY L. MOSS CELEBRATES CENTENARY WITH
THREE
EXHIBITIONS
Elly Nordskog Collection of Japanese Lacquer
Exhibited
in Europe for the First
Time
Sydney L. Moss Ltd.
is
celebrating its centenary with three exhibitions this autumn, one devoted to
Chinese
paintings and calligraphy, the second to a private collection of
Japanese
lacquer, particularly inrō, while the third presents Japanese works of
art
including matched smoking sets or tabakoire,
Japanese painting and a dazzling array of works by Ogawa Haritsu (also known
as
Ritsuō) showing the full range of this versatile artist’s ability.
All
three will be on view to the public at 12 Queen Street, London,
from 4 to 26 November
2010,
coinciding with Asian Art in London
(4 to 13 November).
The gallery
has
finally published its long-trumpeted definitive survey of literati
Chinese
paintings and calligraphy, This
Single
Feather of Auspicious Light, a set of four large volumes
accompanied
by life-size fold-outs of three handscrolls, all presented in an embossed
cloth
box and weighing in at 28 kg or 62 lbs – the largest art dealer’s
catalogue
ever. A selection of the works featured in the book will be on
show
including a
horizontal
poem-letter, mounted as if for tea ceremony display in a
tokonoma, by Fu Shan who was one of
the
great early Ch’ing calligraphers, as well as being the intellectual
and
literati hero of Shansi province.
His
personal, small-scale, intimately modulated handwriting is
relatively
rare. Portraiture has until recently been a largely ignored aspect of
old
Chinese painting, unless you were the Emperor; but this publication
champions
the significance of superior figural painting evident in the remarkable
study
by the leading court artist Chiao Ping-chen of a Tibetan lama-king, probably
a
posthumous devotional study. Dating from the early 1720s, it is
most
likely to have palace workshop connections.
One of the
more
important handscrolls on view is Ting Yün-p’eng’s Kuan-yin in her Compassion Barge, a single-hair brush
ink
fine-outline masterpiece datable to the very early 1580s, in which the
deity
and the dharma are supported
and
protected by a full complement of Buddhist lohan
and other protective divinities, notably including those of a
Taoist
persuasion. The exotic lohan
float
from the Isles of the Blessed upon a range of magical sea creatures, all
of
which allows plenty of room for the gifted artist’s imagination, as well as
his
astounding technical prowess. Another rare and important handscroll
is
that of Wu Pin’s Peach Blossom
Spring,
datable to circa
1615-20.
The late Ming dynasty’s arch-fantasist is here characteristically
less
hard-edged and bizarrely dramatic than he is in his huge hanging scrolls,
but
the result is no less unlikely and unsettling. The Peach Blossom Spring
story
of a lost paradise free of government intervention takes place on a series
of
three islands. Wu’s deliberately naïve architectural details inhabit
a
landscape which is at once charming and innovatively radical, both in
overall
composition and in its strange, unconventional brushwork.
The other
two
exhibitions will be devoted to Japanese art, the first being the collection
of
Californian nonagenarian and grande
dame
of the heyday of the Los Angeles Japanese art collecting scene, Elly
Nordskog,
from which Sydney L. Moss is offering 65 inrō, 30 pipecases, 60 netsuke and
a
selection of other works. Mrs. Nordskog showed exceptional taste
in
Japanese lacquer, especially in marrying inrō with netsuke of
complementary
subjects. She collected with an unerring eye for the
exquisitely
beautiful, especially her inrō. In addition she was drawn to pipecases,
a
somewhat neglected area of collecting, but one that is immensely rewarding
in
terms of the quality of the workmanship of the lacquer (and related arts).
She also collected netsuke, unsurprisingly with a marked preference
for
lacquered examples. Sydney L. Moss has researched both inrō and
pipecases
as the existing literature on inrō does not fully explain the symbolism
and
source derivation, and – inexplicably – there is no book on pipecases.
The accompanying catalogue is intended to make a contribution to the
general
understanding of the background and meaning of these beautiful works
of
art. The gallery has been assisted in its endeavours by the husband
and
wife team of Heinz and Else Kress, who have personally inspected and
archived
33,000 inrō, making them the world’s most experienced connoisseurs of
the
field. Translators have also been driven to the verge of insanity
with
persistent questions.
The third
exhibition
springs in part from the second. This centenary catalogue reflects
the
gallery’s tastes and enthusiasms in Japanese art, not least for
robustly
individualist artists of character, mostly of the Edo
period. The Nordskog collection does not particularly focus on
the
pouches associated with pipecases – in other words the matched smoking set,
tabakoire. These have long
been
prized by Sydney L. Moss and a select group of Japanese collectors.
On
view and published in detail are six matched sets, with
extensive
interpretations of the imagery and poetic associations of the
different
elements: pipecase, motifs printed or stamped on the pouch, metal clasp
and
backplate. These smoking sets lead to a rare grouping of
tonkotsu, wood portable hanging
tobacco
containers, considerably earlier and more rustic in feel than the cloth
and
leather pouches, but frequently the work of netsuke carvers, in this case
many
by Minkō of Tsu, with lavish use of inlays in different materials.
One
such is the work of Minkō’s follower, Hasegawa Ikko; and that is the
connection
to a number of other works by him, notably the remarkable pipecase inlaid
with
hares.
Wood and
lacquer
objects with exotic inlays are also prominent in this exhibition, the
crowning
glory of which are several important works by Ogawa Haritsu known as
Ritsuō,
(1663-1747), one of the great Japanese masters of the applied arts,
still
curiously misunderstood and underrated, especially in his own country.
Acquired some years ago with the centenary in mind is a pair of cedar
sliding
doors decorated with toppled piles of open books as well as major sculptures
by
him; a gold-lacquered and inlaid figure of a crouching Benkei, and a pair
of
part-lacquered wood Niō temple guardians, a major rediscovery.
In
addition to these important works, each unique to date, there is a
fascinating
box by him, decorated in a brilliant and bewildering variety of inlays
and
lacquer techniques with his own and other early inrō and
sagemono types. Also on view are a
number
of rare and admirable “special” works by his follower, Mochizuki
Hanzan
(1743?-1790?).
This exhibition
also
focuses on a few paintings by Ritsuō, which serve as a link to a major
section
of paintings and calligraphies by other artists. The majority of
them
derive from and illustrate the Edo period’s fascinating sub-stratum
of
Chinese-influenced and Confucian taste and aesthetic content, to which in
Japan
only a handful of sencha
(steeped
tea ceremony) and late bunjinga
(the literary men’s painting) adherents pay much attention; while in the
West,
hardly at all. A small but significant group of calligraphies by
the
great Ishikawa Jōzan (1583-1672), master of the Kyoto Chinese-style retreat Shisendō and
hero
of the excellent publication of the same name, includes a letter to his
friend
Hayashi Razan (1583-1657), the leading Confucianist of the day, comparing
Razan
to the 36 Chinese poets after whom he named his retreat. The
catalogue
includes an essay on Jōzan, Ritsuō and Edo period Confucianism, its
relationship
to the Shogunal government and the artistic themes and directions involved,
by
the noted Chicago
collector and enthusiast Dr. Edmund J. Lewis.
Noteworthy
Zen
paintings by Shōkadō Shōjō (1584-1639), Hakuin Ekaku (1685-1768) and a
chinso portrait of Hakuin’s abbot
friend
Kōkoku with a long eulogy by Suiō Genrō (1717-1789) are also on
show.
Other paintings featured are largely defined or categorised, where
they
can be, by their quirkiness of appeal, and include surprising works by Kishi
Ganku
(1749/56-1838), Nagasawa Rosetsu (1754-1799) and the charming Tanaka
Totsugen
(1768-1823).
Any Sydney L.
Moss
Japanese art catalogue would be incomplete without new groundbreaking
netsuke
discoveries, and visitors to the gallery will find two important putative
works
by an artist named Mataemon, recorded but with no work illustrated in
the
important 1781 publication Sōken
Kishō.
The
exhibitions
coincide with the 13th staging of Asian Art in London
(4 to 13 November
2010), an
annual
event that unites London’s leading Asian art dealers, major auction houses
and
societies in a series of selling exhibitions, auctions, receptions,
lectures
and seminars that attract visitors from around the
world.
Venue:
Sydney
L.
Moss Ltd., 12 Queen
Street,
London W1J
5PG
www.slmoss.com,
Tel. +44 (0)20 7629
4670
Opening
hours:
Monday to Friday,
10
am to 5.30
pm
Mayfair late-night opening Monday 8
November
to 9
pm
Publications:
This Single Feather
of
Auspicious Light: Old Chinese Painting and Calligraphy
The
Elly
Nordskog Collection of
Japanese
Lacquer
Sydney L. Moss Ltd. Centenary Exhibition of Japanese Works of
art
Price
ranges:
£3,000 to over £500,000 for Chinese
painting
and
calligraphy
£10,000 to £300,000 for Japanese works of art and
paintings
For
further information and photographic material, please
contact:
Sue
Bond Public
Relations
Hollow Lane
Farmhouse,
Thurston, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
IP31 3RQ,
UK
Tel. +44
(0)1359
271085, Fax. +44 (0)1359
271934
E-mail.
info@suebond.co.uk, Website. www.suebond.co.uk