The work you’ll find here—by 20th-century Japanese artists—celebrates outsiders, eccentrics, and the rich literati tradition of nonconformism.

It also represents an explosion of creativity and originality in Japanese art. Until the Meiji period, Japanese painting had been dominated by the largely patternized forms of rival schools. But beginning in the first decade of the 20th century, access to Western periodicals and opportunities to travel abroad lent artists unprecedented access to foreign contemporaries and practices. Nihonga (modern painting that uses traditional Japanese media and motifs) and its twin, Sho (vanguard calligraphy), evolved by absorbing and repurposing external influences that included Western and Chinese painting, elements of the homegrown Zen esthetic, and the increasingly popular world of manga. Ceramic artists were influenced both by the revival of Momoyama-era forms as well as the influence of Western sculpture. Their body of work remains an important chronicle of Japan's modernization, encapsulating the cultural debates raging at the time—debates about national character, identity, and tradition.

At Japanese Modernism, a gallery located in New York, we offer artworks for sale to private collectors and institutions. We also strive to bring exposure and scholarship to the work of these Japanese modernists, which is still not sufficiently known in the West.