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  • LACMA Installation: Cranes by Maruyama Okyo

LACMA Installation: Cranes by Maruyama Okyo

  • Saturday, January 19, 2013
  • Monday, July 01, 2013
  • LACMA - Pavilion for Japanese Art (Los Angeles, CA)

Maruyama Okyo, Cranes, 1772, An’ei period (1772-1780)
Photo © 2012 Museum Associates/LACMA

On View: January 19, 2013 - July 2013

LACMA - Pavilion of Japanese Art
5905 Wilshire Boulevard (at Fairfax Avenue)
Los Angeles, CA, 90036
323 857-6000

Museum Hours
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday: 11 am–5 pm
Friday: 11 am–8 pm
Saturday, Sunday: 10 am-7 pm
closed Wednesday 

Maruyama Okyo (1733-95) is pivotal to Japanese art history for being one of the first artists to paint directly from nature rather than from paintings and sketches. Of his five most famous pairs of screens, four are registered National Treasures by the Japanese government and may therefore never leave Japan except on loan. 

Only these legendary screens remain unregistered, and on February 22, 2011, the Ministry of Culture of Japan granted an official export license to LACMA for the opportunity to acquire these screens. 

Prior to its LACMA acquisition, Cranes was preserved only in two private collections: the Yamada Collection (1773-1926) and the Harihan Collection (1926-2012). Due to their extraordinary collection history, and to their only being shown in public exhibitions twice (for four weeks in 1996 at the Kyoto University Museum of Art and in 2004 at the Osaka Museum of Art), this pair of screens is in outstanding condition, almost without parallel for paintings in mineral pigment on paper from the same period. Besides the screens’ eight weeks on public display, they have been shown in private viewings only to Emperor Showa (Hirohito) in 1956 and to the present emperor (Akihito) in 1958, when each emperor visited the legendary Harihan Estate in Kobe especially to view these screens. 

General Admission: Adults: $15; students 18+ with ID and senior citizens 62+: $10 
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