Heroes, Poets, Gods, and Monsters: From Gekkō’s Brush
January 19 – May 4, 2025
John Young Museum of Art, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
An important print designer and an accomplished painter, Ogata Gekkō (1859–1920) was a prominent artist in Japan during the Meiji (1868–1912) and Taishō (1912–1926) eras. With a career that produced a rich and varied body of work over four decades, Gekkō enjoyed great acclaim with the Japanese public in his lifetime, but slowly fell into neglect in the years after his death.
Heroes, Poets, Gods, and Monsters: From Gekkō’s Brush, curated by Dr. Ioan Paul Colta and hosted by the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa John Young Museum of Art, was conceived as part of recent efforts to reclaim, re-evaluate and restore modern Japanese woodblock print artists like Gekkō to both popular and scholarly attention. It features Gekkō’s masterful woodblock print series From Gekkō’s Brush (Gekkō zuihitsu), on loan from the Raymond Milewski Collection of Japanese Prints. The series – arguably Ogata Gekkō’s finest – is composed of forty-seven prints that reference a fascinating world of contemporary, historical, legendary, and mythological figures, as well as the intriguing stories that feature them, all drawn from Japanese culture and infused with Ogata Gekkō’s signature style. This exhibition represents the first time From Gekkō’s Brush has been exhibited in its entirety outside Japan.
The exhibition will open with a lecture by curator Dr. Colta, an important scholar of modern Japanese prints who will speak on Ogata Gekkō’s life, times, and artworks, at 12:30 on January 19, 2025. The exhibition also features both a printed and online catalogue authored by Colta. Heroes, Poets, Gods, and Monsters: From Gekkō’s Brush was made possible by the generous support of the UHM Japan Studies Endowment.
LECTURE: by exhibition curator Dr. Ioan Paul Colta
Date: January 19, 2025, Sunday, 12:30–2:00 PM
Location: UH Manoa Art Building Room 101
Opening Reception
Date: January 19, 2025, Sunday, 2:00–4:00 PM
Location: The JOHN YOUNG MUSEUM OF ART
The JOHN YOUNG MUSEUM OF ART is located in Krauss Hall at 2500 Dole Street Honolulu, Hawai‘i 96822 (Directions).
Museum hours & admission
Tuesday – Friday, & Sunday 12 – 4 p.m.
Closed Saturdays, Mondays, spring break (March 17-19), and state holidays.
Free admission. Donations are appreciated.
Parking fees may apply during weekdays. Parking is free on Sundays
For more information please contact 808.956.8364 and gallery@hawaii.edu