Loading...
This exclusive evening event offers a rare opportunity to discover more about the person behind the collection, what has inspired his interest in collecting, as well as the chance to see prints in his collection which are not on display in the exhibition.
Frank will take you on a guided tour of the Edo Pop display and will talk about "meaning" and context behind the prints, whether they are allusive, associative, historical, personal, public. He will explore what the prints may have meant to the people of Edo (circa 1860), and what they meant to the western world at that time. What was the Watts’s interest in this and were they influenced by the new availability of Japanese prints? How were other artists responding?
For example, Edouard Manet’s 1868 portrait of the naturalist/realist and highly political author Emile Zola depicts a Japanese print of a sumo wrestler in the background which is very reminiscent of some of the prints on display in Edo Pop. In this painting, Manet has placed the Japanese print next to a reproduction of his own scandalous painting of the artist and famous model Victorine Meurent (the so-called "Olympia"), and adjacent to a black and white picture of Velazquez's picture "Bacchus ". Frank will consider this and what Manet may have been trying to say to the viewer.
From a collectors perspective, Frank will consider how these prints are collected and presented today, and will bring other prints from his collection for the audience to handle and explore in greater detail.
Drinks will be available.