Note: Click here for a list of activities related to the exhibition.

Exhibition of Japanese art to celebrate restoration of 500 year-old screen painting

CHAPEL HILL -- A six-panel folding screen from about 1500, depicting flowers and birds, will be the centerpiece of an exhibition of Japanese art displayed from Oct. 19 to Jan. 4, 2004, at the Ackland Art Museum.

The exhibition, "Plum, Pine, and Bamboo: Seasonal and Spiritual Paths in Japanese Art," will celebrate the recent return of the screen to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill museum. Experts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York spent more than two years restoring the fragile painting.

The screen, 5 feet tall by 10 feet wide, is one of only a few surviving screens on the subject of birds and flowers that are attributed to Sesshū Tōyō (1420-1506), whom Ackland director Dr. Gerald Bolas called one of the most important painters in Japanese history.

"He is to Japanese painting what the names Michelangelo and Leonardo are to Italian Renaissance painting," Bolas said. "As such, our bird-and-flower screen attributed to Sesshū is an important addition to the Ackland’s Asian Collection, already the most significant in the state of North Carolina.”

Sondra Castile of the East Asian art conservation department at the Metropolitan Museum, who restored the screen with a colleague, will speak about the project from 3-4 p.m. Oct. 19 in UNC’s Hanes Art Center Auditorium. The talk will coincide with an opening reception for the exhibition from 3-5 p.m. at the Ackland. Both events will be free and open to the public.

"Plum, Pine and Bamboo" will showcase 23 objects, including hanging scrolls, hand scrolls, other folding screens, print albums, ceramics and sculpture, ranging in date from the Japanese Kamakura (1185-1333) to Meiji (1868-1912) periods.

During the exhibition, the Ackland also will display two complementary installations, "Sea & Sky: Contemporary Japanese Ceramics," including recent acquisitions, and "Carolina Collects: Japanese Art," with works on loan from local collectors.

Among activities connected with "Plum, Pine and Bamboo" will be a free public lecture Nov. 16 by Dr. Barbara Ford, curator of Japanese art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The talk, "Metamorphosis of a Theme: Chinese Birds and Flowers in Japanese Ink Painting," will be at 3 p.m. in the Hanes Art Center Auditorium.

The Sesshū screen will be on public display for possibly the first time in its 500 years, said Lyn Koehnline, conservator at the Ackland. "It is one of about 35 works of art in the world that are attributed to this artist, who was extremely famous and influential in his time," she said.

When the museum acquired the screen, about a fifth of the right side was missing, Koehnline said. An earlier restoration effort had converted it from the original folding panels – six screens painted separately -- to a flat surface.

Restoring the screen has been one of the Ackland’s most significant conservation projects, Bolas said. "It is extremely gratifying to see the bird-and-flower screen returned to close to its original form and a privilege to share it with the community for the first time," he said.

The Ackland is on South Columbia Street near Franklin Street. Hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays and 1-5 p.m. Sundays. Admission is free. For more information, call 919-843-1611 (recorded information), 919-966-5736 (museum office), 919-962-0837 (TTY) or visit the Web site at www.ackland.org.

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Note: The Ackland will host a media preview of the exhibition from 2-4 p.m. Oct. 15. Museum director Dr. Gerald Bolas, exhibition curator Kendal Parker and Ackland curator Lyn Koehnline will be available for interviews.

· http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/visiting/exhibits/sesshu101003.jpg. Attributed to Sesshū Tōyō, Japanese, “Flowers and Birds,” ca. 1500, six-panel folding screen; ink and color on paper, Ackland Art Museum, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Ackland Fund 98.

Contact: Maria Gloeggler, Ackland Director of Communications, 843-3675
News Services Contact: L.J. Toler, 962-8589