Screens, Scrolls, and Prints

Japanese Art from LACMA’s Collection 

In 1965, architect Frank Gehry designed his first exhibition for LACMA, for Art Treasures from Japan, organized by the museum’s curator of Asian Art, George Kuwayama. Gehry’s sensitive design featured elements of Japanese architecture—for example, rock gardens, wood post and beam construction for the barriers protecting sculptures, and dedicated niches for the art. The architect alluded to low ceilings typical of Japan’s domestic architecture through cloth that delicately canopied from the ceiling.

Fifty years and eleven LACMA exhibitions later, the museum asked Gehry, on the occasion of his retrospective Frank Gehry, to reprise his role designing a presentation of Japanese art, with the selection of a small group of screens, scrolls, and prints from LACMA’s permanent collection. The exhibition features works that employ paper as their support, and highlights the extraordinary diversity of styles, subject matter, and artistic techniques found in Japanese art from the 15th to early 20th centuries.

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