Meher Mcarthur

From Origami to Anime:

A Curator's Journey Through Japanese Art

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Embark on a fascinating journey of discovery with Japanese art! In this engaging memoir, art historian and curator Meher McArthur transports you into the extraordinary world of Japanese art and museum collections. In a series of personal behind-the-scenes stories, McArthur showcases dozens of art objects--from traditional ceramics, swords, prints and textiles to folk painting, contemporary art and animation--that reveal a power to heal, provide escape and bring people from different cultures together. The author's highly personal accounts are interwoven with descriptions of exquisite artworks and artifacts. Fall in love with Japanese culture and art as you follow McArthur's journey from a student to a seasoned specialist. The sections in this book each focus on a specific work of art that is described within the context of how Meher learns about it: * First foray: McArthur's childhood in Scotland, where two Japanese women give her a paper doll--her first encounter with Japanese art! * Islands of beauty: While living as a student in Japan and taking calligraphy lessons, McArthur receives a beautiful kimono and obis from a generous friend * Heartbreak and healing: McArthur rushes back to the UK to care for her mother, who is suffering from leukemia, and she folds origami cranes for her--an act she'll poignantly recall years later when curating an exhibition of cranes folded by the famous Hiroshima atomic-bomb survivor, Sadako Sasaki * A year of shards: Back in Japan to study ceramics, McArthur is aghast to learn that her brother, who also has leukemia, has relapsed. At the same time, her master's thesis strategy falls apart, and she must regroup * Recollections of a curator: McArthur shares her trials and triumphs as a Japanese art curator, relating the meaning of wonderful artifacts like a samurai sword, Buddhist prints, folk paintings, bronze dragons and woodblock prints * Spotted pumpkins and origami: McArthur deepens her appreciation of modern Japanese art during a stay on the "art island" of Naoshima, home to several giant pumpkin sculptures by Yayoi Kusama. She also coordinates traveling exhibitions of origami masterpieces, and assists with the exhibition of the work of Shinkai Makoto, a major Japanese animation artist One artwork and one language lesson at a time, McArthur unspools a compelling narrative of beauty, heartbreak and resilience. This book will provide avid art lovers new ways of seeing and understanding the power of art.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Tuttle Publishing
• Seitenzahl: 224
• Erscheinungstermin: 28. Oktober 2025
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9784805319901
• ISBN-10: 4805319909
• Artikelnr.: 72702996

Autorenporträt

Meher McArthur has decades of experience as an Asian art historian and curator specializing Japanese art. With degrees from Cambridge University and London University's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), she has served as Curator of East Asian Art at Pacific Asia Museum, Creative Director for the Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden, Academic Curator for Scripps College and Art and Cultural Director for Japan House in Los Angeles. She has also taught courses in Asian art at the University of Southern California, Scripps College and Claremont Graduate University. She regularly lectures and trains docents at various museums in Southern California. For over a decade, McArthur has curated exhibitions for International Arts & Artists (IA&A) including Washi Transformed: New Expressions in Japanese Paper and Kimono: Garment, Canvas, and Artistic Muse. She also curated the exhibition Shiki: The Four Seasons in Japanese Art at the Sturt Haaga Gallery at Descanso Gardens. She lives in Pasadena, CA. Pico Iyer is a British-born essayist and novelist who was educated at Eton, Oxford and Harvard. Since 1987, he has been based in Western Japan, while traveling everywhere from Bhutan to Easter Island and North Korea to Los Angeles. He is the author of fifteen books, including the bestsellers The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise (Penguin Random House, 2023), A Beginner's Guide to Japan: Observations and Provocations (Random House, 2020) and The Art of Stillness: Adventures In Going Nowhere (Simon & Schuster, 2014). He has been a constant contributor for more than thirty years to Time, The New York Times, Harper's Magazine, the Los Angeles Times and more than 250 other periodicals worldwide. He has written the introductions to more than fifty other books, as well as screenplays, librettos and many liner-notes for Leonard Cohen. He speaks regularly everywhere from West Point to Davos and Shanghai to Bogota, and his four recent talks for TED have received more than ten million views.