Cranes by Maruyama Okyo

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is pleased to present the U.S. debut of Maruyama Okyo’s Cranes (1772), an extraordinary pair of Japanese screens recently acquired by the museum’s Curator of Japanese Art, Robert T. Singer.

Maruyama Okyo (1733-95) is pivotal to Japanese art history for being one of the first artists to paint directly from nature rather than from paintings and sketches. Of his five most famous pairs of screens, four are registered National Treasures by the Japanese government and may therefore never leave Japan except on loan. Only these legendary screens remain unregistered, and on February 22, 2011 after a two-year campaign by Singer, the Ministry of Culture of Japan granted an official export license to LACMA for the opportunity to acquire these screens. This honor was granted in recognition of the growing importance of LACMA's Pavilion for Japanese Art and its collections, and in the hope that Americans and Europeans can thereby appreciate the very highest achievement in the history of Japanese painting.  

Image credits:

Maruyama Okyo, Cranes, 1772, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Gift of Camilla Chandler Frost in honor of Robert T. Singer, Photo © 2013 Museum Associates/LACMA

Maruyama Okyo, Cranes, 1772, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Gift of Camilla Chandler Frost in honor of Robert T. Singer, Photo © 2013 Museum Associates/LACMA