Databáze uměleckých výstav v českých zemích 1820 – 1950

The show entitled “Exhibition of Classical and Modern Japanese Paintings, Given to the Czechoslovak State by Mr. Jirohachi Satsuma” was held by the Japanese Association at the Oriental Institute in Prague. The association, founded on March 8, 1934, organized diverse social activities and promoted Japanese artists. In 1935, it received a generous gift from the Japanese industrialist Mitsui Takaharu. That same year, the Japanese Association invited the collector and art patron Satsuma Jirōhachi to Prague to give a lecture, on June 7, about the organization of the so-called Japanese university student towns. A later report, preserved in the association’s archives, shows that Satsuma became an external member of the Oriental Institute, where another Japanese art collector, Ogawa Noboru, a chargé d’affaires at the Japanese embassy in Prague, already held the position of the institute’s vice-chairman. Ogawa was instrumental in making the exhibition happen, and he also arranged for the collection to be given to the Czechoslovak state. Two years later, on April 23, 1938, the Ministry of Schooling and National Education decided on the matter of artworks from the collection of Jirōhachi Satsuma, placing the gift in the State Collection of Old Masters (Picture Gallery of the Society of Friends of Fine Art). Ogawa’s letter attached to the official decision specified that the gift consisted of 22 works (19 from Satsuma’s collection and three from his own). The letter also contains the list of old masters and contemporary artists represented in the collection: Kanō Tsukenobu, Kawabe Kakyo, Suzuki Harunobu, Shiba Kōkan, representative of the Tosa School, Kaburagi Kiyokata, Yamamura Kōka, Dejima Shunkō, Fujita Tsugiji (Tsuguharu), Kōno Misao, Oka Shikanosuke, Suzuki Ryūichi, Oguiss Takanori, Takeshi Takasaki, Unsoung Pai, and Kojō Kōkan. In November of the same year, the State Collection confirmed the acquisition. The artifacts from this exhibition became the core of the future collection of Japanese art at the National Gallery in Prague.

The collection of works from the Satsuma Collection clearly shows the intention to present both traditional and avant-garde Japanese art in Europe: that is, Japanese visual art in its diversity. In addition to woodcuts, ink paintings, and gold-decorated screens, the collection included drawings by the well-known painter Fujita Tsuguharu and oil paintings by Dejima Shunkō (1897-1940), Oguissa Takanori (1901-1986) and other contemporary artists. Ogawa added three works by other contemporary artists to the collection: two watercolours by Kōkan Kojō (1891-1988) and an oil by Korean artist Pae Un-sŏng (1900-1978). Women painters were also represented, for example, Kubō Suiko.

Few documents have survived from the exhibition in the Krasoumná jednota hall. A photograph from a newspaper shows a standard interwar installation. The space, divided by two gilded screens, contained twenty works from the Satsuma collection alongside artifacts from domestic collections, amounting to approximately fifty artworks. 

Critical responses to the exhibition in German and Czech periodicals were scarce. Most reviewers thought the contemporary works attracted more attention than the older, classical works, voicing the prevailing opinion that traditional Japanese arts and crafts were exhausted as a source of inspiration.

For example, the critic from Pražský list (December 19, 1936) wrote: “The collection of Japanese paintings, donated to Czechoslovakia and exhibited in the Krasoumná Jednota, is more interesting in its paintings by modern, Europe-influenced painters than its older ones who did not lead the preserved painting tradition to mastery, but to convention and formal rigidity. Even the donor seems to have been more fond of painters who used European motifs, such as Fujita, Micao Kono, Hnytschi (sic!) Souzouki, Shunka (sic!) Dejima, Takanoni Ogniss (sic!), Shikanosuke Oka, Takeshi Takasaki, Unsoung Pai. They essentially belong to the Paris school, but they have a very idiosyncratic, subtle, and emotionally refined [sic!]. The nakedness of the white-skinned blonde, as depicted by Misao Kono, seems to be transposed in its lines and colours into the metaphor of flowers.” [Kr. 1936]

The work described here – the oil painting Sleeping Naked Woman by Kōno Misao (1900-1979) – was also reproduced in the press. Another work to attract reviewers’ attention was Chateau Blanc (1927) by Oka Shikanosuke (1898–1978). A review in the Brno edition of Lidové noviny from December 22, 1936 can give us an idea about the impression Oka’s works made on viewers “... there is Shikanosuke Oka with his Flowers and Chateau, which unobtrusively reflect some of the traditional taste for beauty.”

The work of the Korean (sometimes referred to as Japanese-Korean) artist Pae Un-sŏng presented an unusual case at the exhibition. During the period of Japanese imperialism, Japan became a centre for artists from newly colonized and other neighbouring countries. Pae studied in Japan and later in Germany, where he was supported by Adolph Donath (1876-1937), an art critic popular in cultural circles of Berlin and Vienna. To bring him closer to the Czech audiences, Donath compared Pae to the well-known Prague printmaker Emil Orlik (1870–1932). Even before the Satsuma collection show, the Japanese Association organized a solo exhibition of Pae’s works in Prague; later on, he had a show in Paris, organized with the help of Satsuma Jirohachi.

There are several reasons why the exhibition of the Satsuma collection is among the most important shows of Japanese art in the Czech milieu. First of all, it introduced Czech audiences to contemporary Japanese artists. After the exhibition, the artworks were given to the Czechoslovak state, becoming the core of the future collection of Japanese art in the National Gallery in Prague, complete with several other collections of Czech Japanese scholars, Japanophiles, and aristocrats. In addition, the exhibition confirmed the importance of the Japanese Association at the Oriental Institute in Prague, its close contacts with European Japanese scholarship, and its ability to lead a dialogue with the contemporary Japanese cultural scene.

Helena Čapková

Works Cited

Jč 1939: Výstava japonských obrazů klasických i moderních, Lidové noviny, 1936, 22. 12., Archive of the National Gallery in Prague, Fonds Krasoumná jednota, novinové výstřižky k činnosti Krasoumné jednoty [newspaper clippings concerning the activity of Krasoumná jednota], 1916–1937, box 167–172, acc. no. 1502

Kr. 1936: Kr., Japonský dar, Polední list (3. vydání), 1936, 19. 12., Archive of the National Gallery in Prague, Fonds Krasoumná jednota, novinové výstřižky k činnosti Krasoumné jednoty [newspaper clippings concerning the activity of Krasoumná jednota], 1916–1937, box 167–172, acc. no. 1502

Further Reading

Helena Čapková, Marginální fenomén, nebo oběť orientalistického klišé? K vzájemným stykům japonských a evropských meziválečných avantgard / Relations between the Japanese and the European Avant-garde in the Interwar Era: A Subject of Marginal Interest or a Victim of Orientalist Cliché?, Umění/Art LXV/2, 2017, pp. 123–139

Tokushima Modern Art Museum et al., Salon Des Artistes Japonais and

Baron Satsuma: Japanese Artists in Europe before World War II (exh. cat.), Tokyo 1998

Markéta Hánová, Sbírka asijského umění v Národní galerii v Praze: Pojetí velkorysosti ve formování sbírky japonského umění a v ikonografii japonského buddhismu, in: Adam Budak — Michaela Pejčochová (edd.), Velkorysost. Umění obdarovat. Bílý králík: Kniha k výstavě, Národní galerie v Praze 2016, pp. 117–141

Jaroslav Olša, jr., The Korean painter Pae Un-sŏng (Unsoung Pai) and his 1936 Exhibitions in Czechoslovakia,Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch, vol.  90, Seoul 2015

Anonymous author, Výstavu japonských obrazů…, Typografické listy, 1936, 15. 12., Archive of the National Gallery in Prague, Fonds Krasoumná jednota, novinové výstřižky k činnosti Krasoumné jednoty [newspaper clippings concerning the activity of Krasoumná jednota], 1916–1937, box 167–172, acc. no. 1502

Anonymous author, Japonské obrazy, Právo lidu (2. vydání), 1936, 20. 12., Archive of the National Gallery in Prague, Fonds Krasoumná jednota, novinové výstřižky k činnosti Krasoumné jednoty [newspaper clippings concerning the activity of Krasoumná jednota], 1916–1937, box 167–172, acc. no. 1502

Anonymous author, Japanische Gemälde, Bohemia, 1936, 20. 12., Archiv Národní galerie v Praze, Fond Krasoumná jednota, novinové výstřižky k činnosti Krasoumné jednoty, 1916–1937, kart. 167–172, př. č. 1502

Anonymous author, V Krasoumné jednotě…, Rakovnické noviny, 1936, 24. 12., Archive of the National Gallery in Prague, Fonds Krasoumná jednota, novinové výstřižky k činnosti Krasoumné jednoty [newspaper clippings concerning the activity of Krasoumná jednota], 1916–1937, box 167–172, acc. no. 1502

Anonymous author, Japonské obrazy, Lidová politika, 1936, 25. 12., Archive of the National Gallery in Prague, Fonds Krasoumná jednota, novinové výstřižky k činnosti Krasoumné jednoty [newspaper clippings concerning the activity of Krasoumná jednota], 1916–1937, box 167–172, acc. no. 1502

Kr., Alžírské motivy, Pondělní list, 1936, 21. 12., Archive of the National Gallery in Prague, Fonds Krasoumná jednota, novinové výstřižky k činnosti Krasoumné jednoty [newspaper clippings concerning the activity of Krasoumná jednota], 1916–1937, box 167–172, acc. no. 1502