Kuroda Seiki: Master Western-style Painter of Modern Japan Exhibition

　The Kuroda Seiki Exhibition held at the Shimane Prefectural Iwami Art Museum from July 18 (Saturday) to August 31 (Monday) attracted some 15,177 visitors. The daily average number of visitors was a record since the opening commemorative exhibition of the Iwami Art Museum. More than 80 percent of the visitors answered exit questionnaires conducted by the museum on August 1. Many visitors came from the prefectures near Shimane – approximately 30% from Hiroshima, 10% from Yamaguchi – and all respondents said they were satisfied with the exhibition. A variety of devices were used to advertise this exhibition such as distributing tissue pouches with painting of “Lakeside”, reproducing and giving the first 30 visitors each day a reproduction of the paper fan with Uchiwa painted in “Lakeside”. We carried out the following related events, which attracted many participants: a lecture on August 1 by Ms. Yamanashi Emiko of our Institute’s Department of Research Programming titled “Modernization or Japanese paintings and Kuroda Seiki”, a workshop producing drawings and paintings in watercolors using a model wearing similar Kimono to that in “Lakeside” on August 8, and a lecture titled “Kuroda Seiki and Mori Ogai” on August 29 by the head curator of the Iwami Art Museum, Ms. Kawanishi Yuri. Next year, the Kuroda Seiki Exhibition will be held at the Iwate Museum of Art.