Japanese Wave showcases the Laing Art Gallery’s fine collection of ukiyo-e and decorative artefacts dating mainly from the Edo and early Meiji periods.

 

To complement this, the Laing will also be showing artwork by 2009 Turner-prize nominee Lucy Skaer, whose large-scale drawing The Great Wave (Expanded) 2007 is an intense reworking of Hokusai’s most famous image Under the Wave, off Kanagawa.Together the displays will touch on ideas of cultural exchange, presenting the individual creativity of a culture and its later influence.

 

As well as Under the Wave, off Kanagawa, other views from Hokusai’s famous series of Mount Fuji will be on show alongside a selection of Hiroshige’s Fifty-three Stations on the Tokaido Highway and Eight Views of Lake Biwa. Reflecting these themes, decorative artefacts such as inro and netsuke feature fine craftsmanship in the form of miniature landscape and nature detailed in exquisite materials including lacquerwork, carved ivory and mother-of-pearl.