Forgotten Japonisme
Entrance Hall, No. 1 Kensington Palace Gardens, London
House conversion by Wells Coates (Arch.)
As featured in the Architectural Review, Vol. 72, July 1932.
Led by TrAIN Director Professor Toshio Watanabe, Forgotten Japonisme is a major three year research project funded by the AHRC. Between October 2007 and October 2010, this project will explore a previously neglected period in the study of Western attitudes towards Japanese art: from the 1920s to the 1950s. By examining a broad range of visual culture – including architecture, craft, design, garden design, painting, print-making and sculpture – and also focusing on individual case studies, those involved in the project seek to achieve a new understanding of transnational interactions between Japan, Britain and the USA.
Within existing studies of the taste for Japanese art in the West, two distinct periods have come to prominence. These are the period from the mid 19th century to the early 20th century, when Japanese art made a strong impact on Western culture, and the period from the 1960s to the present, particularly after the 1964 Tokyo Olympics – when a new image of Japanese visual culture emerged with the Tokaido bullet train, Kenzo Tange’s daring buildings and Yusaku Kamekura’s clean and bold posters. What happened in between these periods however has never been systematically investigated, and there is a tacit understanding that a taste for Japanese art was impossible during the Second World War. This project aims to provide evidence that this was not the case, and will investigate both negative and positive attitudes towards Japanese art from the 1920s to the 1950s.
Case studies will include the work of Wells Coates, William Staite Murray, Isamu Noguchi, Russel Wright, Frederick Starr and Mark Tobey; the early 20th century woodcut revival in Britain, and Japanese gardens in Ireland, the UK and the USA. Wider strands of investigation will include a consideration of any continuity between classic 19th century Japonisme and the image of hi-tech modern Japan, and an examination of how the taste for Japanese art affected the development of modernism.
The research team will include a further three core members of the Research Centre: Dr Yuko Kikuchi, Rebecca Salter and Dr Julian Stair. They are joined by two external experts, from Japan and the USA, AHRC Research Fellow Dr Anna Basham, and AHRC Research Student Piotr Splawski. During the course of the project, three themed workshops and a conference will allow additional external experts to contribute.
Related People
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Rebecca Salter
TrAIN Core Member - Research Fellow
I was born and educated in the UK and after studying for a BA in Three Dimensional Design at Bristol Polytechnic I spent two years as a research student at Kyoto City University of Arts, Japan. After leaving the university I lived in Japan for a further 4 years working in my studio and exhibiting while researching traditional crafts such as papermaking and Japanese woodblock.
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Professor Toshio Watanabe
TrAIN Core Member - Director
I grew up in a transnational environment. My father is Japanese and my mother German from Transylvania in Romania.
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Julian Stair
TrAIN Core Member - Research Fellow
Julian Stair is a potter and writer, his doctoral research concerned the critical origins of English studio pottery, and in 2004 he received a Queen Elizabeth Scholarship to research the making of monumental work in a Staffordshire brick factory. He is one of four core members of TrAIN now working on the ARHC project Forgotten Japonisme.
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Piotr Splawski
Current PhD - AHRC Studentship for the project Forgotten Japonisme
Piotr Splawski has recently commenced his PhD research after being awarded the AHRC Studentship attached to the TrAIN project Forgotten Japonisme. In common with research being carried out by others involved in this project, he aims to challenge a widely accepted, yet tacit, conviction that negative attitudes towards Japan in the West between 1920 and 1960 inhibited the development of the taste for Japan.
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Helena Capkova
Current PhD - Interpreting Japan : Central European Architecture and Design 1920 – 1940
Central Europe has historically been an area with rich cultural networks and significant centres such as Prague, Berlin or Vienna. These centres were cultural melting pots with multilingual and multicultural environments accommodating a mixture of nationalities.
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Dr Yuko Kikuchi
TrAIN Core Member - Reader
I was born in Tokyo and educated in Japan, the USA and UK. After completing a BA in English and American literature and an MA in American Studies, I worked at the School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield, and during this period I began my research in craft and design history.
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Dr Anna Basham
TrAIN Core Member - AHRC Fellow for the Forgotten Japonisme project
I was born and educated in the UK, but for long as I can remember I have been fascinated by the Far East. I trained as a fashion designer at Epsom School of Art and Design, now part of the University for the Creative Arts, where I specialised in knitwear design.
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