Autumn breezes fortified for an abundance of winters to come

QAGOMA conservators collaborated with specialist East Asian Art Conservator Jennifer Loubser to assess the conservation repairs necessary to stabilise an unusual 8-panel Japanese folding screen, Scenes from Genji Monogatari to allow its safe handling and display – in assessing the condition of the work when it came into the Collection it was found that hundreds…

Conserving Japanese Scrolls

Emily Wakeling continues her conversation with Kim Barrett, Conservator, Works on Paper with a focus on displaying and caring for Japanese Scrolls. The exhibition ‘A fleeting bloom’ at the Queensland Art Gallery includes a number of hanging scrolls, and we prepared these delicate works for display. Japanese scrolls are long works on paper that are…

Japanese painted screens

The Gallery welcomes into the Collection a major group of historical Japanese works, thanks to a bequest from the estate of James Fairfax AC – the display at the Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) showcases a selection of these screens, scrolls and ceramics, which highlight an aesthetic of impermanent beauty, transitory moments and the natural world,…

Winter changes into early spring with a range of birdlife

Tosa school founder Tosa Mitsunobu (1434–1525) painted for temples, palaces and the imperial court. He and his disciples specialised in yamato-e (literally, pictures of Japan), such as this finely painted seasonal landscape Pair of six‑fold screens with pine trees c.1650, that were highly favoured by Japan’s imperial court and aristocracy. The stylistic conventions of yamato-e, and…

Under a flowering cherry tree

The exhibition ‘A fleeting bloom’ focuses on the moments of distinct and transient beauty found in the portrayals of nature, history and spirituality in Japanese art. This display of historic works features screens gifted from the James Fairfax AC Bequest 2018. The wide planes of folding screens (byōbu) – a painting format at its peak…