An exhibition featuring works of renowned painter Yang San-lang (楊三郎) on Saturday opened at the Taimei Gallery in Toyko, marking the artist’s first retrospective exhibition in Japan.
The show, titled “Yang San-lang: A Taiwanese Treasure,” features several of Yang’s scenic oil paintings and some pastels. It is to run until July 10.
The extensive showing of Yang’s work illustrates the progress of modern art that occurred simultaneously in Taiwan and Japan, the Japanese Gekkan Bijutsu newspaper said.
Photo: Lin Tsui-yi, Taipei Times
Yang’s Sunrise at Yushan was publicly admired by former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), Yang’s daughter-in-law, Noriko Morakoshi, said at the show’s opening event, adding that the work showcases the magnificent blue ridges of the mountain set against a golden dawn.
Lee thought that the painting conveyed a sense of hope and vitality, Morakoshi said.
Snowing Peaks-Hakuba, Japan, the only painting in the show that is based on a site in Japan, was composed in Nagano Prefecture when Yang was 85 years old, two years before his death in 1995, she said.
Yang traveled to the village of Hakuba carrying canvas and tools to draw the mountain with its characteristic red maples and green pines covered in snow, Morakoshi said.
While the COVID-19 pandemic has prevented many people from traveling, the gallery hopes that the exhibition’s visitors will be able to view scenes of landscapes from around the world through Yang’s eyes, as he had traveled Taiwan, Japan and the US, she said.
New Taipei City’s Yang San-lang Museum, of which Morakoshi is the CEO, loaned pieces from its collection to the exhibition, but several oil paintings were too large to be transported to Japan, she said.
The artist’s personal journals, which show Yang’s affinity for Japan, are also on display.
Taimei Gallery director Masanori Danjo said that Yang is a seminal figure in Taiwanese art, and it is a rare privilege to see his work in Japan.
Yang San-lang’s son, Yang Shin-lang (楊星朗), in a statement said that his father had been a life-long friend of Japan.
His father considered that country his second home and was close friends with Japanese artists such as Ryuzaburo Umehara, he said.
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