Long characterized as an “eccentric” artist working beyond the boundaries of the conventions of his time, Japanese painter Soga Shōhaku (1730–81) reshaped orthodox painting models into the unique style seen in Mount Fuji and the Miho Pine Forest, a pair of folding screens recently acquired by the Art Institute. The piece represents one of the most outstanding examples of Shōhaku’s work in the United States.
Join Kit Brooks, Curator of Asian Art at the Princeton University Art Museum, for a talk exploring what these screens can tell us about the painter’s unconventional artistic background and distinct legacy.
About the Speaker
Kit Brooks is a specialist of Japanese art history of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, who has previously held positions at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, Harvard Art Museums, and the British Museum. Their recent projects include the exhibitions Staging the Supernatural: Ghosts and the Theater in Japanese Prints (2024) and Ay-Ō’s Happy Rainbow Hell (2023), the first US museum exhibition dedicated to the psychedelic Japanese Fluxus artist Ay-Ō (b. 1931).
If you have any questions about programming, please reach out to museum-programs@artic.edu.
Closed captioning will be available for this program. For questions related to accessibility accommodations, please email access@artic.edu.