Yoshiaki Shimizu

Frederick Marquand Professor of Art and Archaeology, Emeritus. Expert in Japanese art. Research straddles the divide between museums and academe. His interests includes ink painting of the medieval period, the arts of Zen Buddhist establishment, Heian and Kamakura narrative painting, Sino-Japanese cultural history of twelfth through sixteenth century, Chinese and Japanese calligraphy, and Kamakura Buddhism and its art. Coedited Japanese Ink Paintings (1976), which focused on Mokuan, Shubun, and Sesshu. Coauthored Masters of Japanese Calligraphy (1985). Edited Japan: The Shaping of Daimyo Culture, 1185-1868 (1989). Article Japanese Art in American Museums: Which Japanese Art? examining the history of the American reception of Japanese art, especially through public exhibitions, appeared in the Art Bulletin, in 2000. From 2006 to 2007, Shimizu was scholar in residence at the New York Japan Society, collaborating as senior curatorial on the society's centennial celebration exhibition, Awakenings: Zen Figure Painting in Mediaeval Japan, organized jointly with the Japanese government's Agency for Cultural Affairs. More recently, has worked on the theme of the relationship between the nuclear disasters (Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Castle Bravo hydrogen bomb testing's) in the Pacific between 1945 and 1954, and the arts' responses to them. In particular this study compares the works of two artists, Hirayama Ikuo (1930-2009), a Japanese, and the other, Ben Shahn (1898-1969), an American. Its core thesis was developed into a public lecture delivered at the Seattle Asian Art Museum in April, 2013.