National Museum of Asian Art: Japanese Mounting Formats with Conservator Akiko Niwa – December 13, 12 pm EST

Please join us on Tuesday, December 13, 12-12:40 pm EST for our series Sneak Peek: New Research from the National Museum of Asian Art, where staff members present brief, personal perspectives and ongoing research, followed by discussion. This year, the series focuses on collecting practices and the collections of the National Museum of Asian Art. Our final program of 2022, What Lies Beneath: Japanese Mounting Formats from the Cowles Collection, will feature Japanese painting conservator Akiko Niwa.

A hanging scroll is one of the most important formats for displaying paintings in Eastern Asia. In Japan, different styles of hanging scrolls developed—over time and with cultural growth–into a range of formats that always relate mainly to the painting subject. These various mounting types can be divided into two categories: one defined by levels of formality and a second, more general group referred to as literati-style mountings. These latter styles became popular around the Meiji period (1868–1912) due to renewed interest in Chinese art and culture. Combined with industrialization and dynamic social change at this time, historically unique and unusual mounting variants also appeared. This talk will give an overview of these styles and then focus on several examples of literati-style mountings from the Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection. 
 
Akiko Niwa is a Japanese painting conservator in the East Asian Painting Conservation Studio, Department of Conservation and Scientific Research. She completed a seven-year apprenticeship training at the Monobe Gasendō studio in Kyoto, Japan, in 2011. She joined the National Museum of Asian Art in 2019 after receiving a PhD in Japanese mounting history and culture from Kyoto University of the Arts.

Register here: https://smithsonian.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_QP6QNXRdTTOiOVgzkn8Xjw

Find more information here: https://asia.si.edu/events-overview/?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26eventid%3D162820597