Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892) is regarded as one of the most important Japanese printmakers of the 19th century. Trained originally as a student of Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861), Yoshitoshi broke new ground in composition, subject matter and technique in woodblock printing.

His prints often depict well-known stories from Japanese history and legend but present them in highly original, sometimes shocking compositions that exhibit a range of influences. This exhibition features approximately 100 of Yoshitoshi’s prints and drawings, representing the full span of his artistic career.

The Meiji period (1868-1912) was a period of dynamic intercultural exchange and economic expansion in Japan, which is clearly reflected in Yoshitoshi’s work. Depictions of steam locomotives and European dress show a new cultural landscape, and his compositions bristle with hyper energy, distinctive shading and perspective. Other subjects include demons, ghosts, warriors, supernatural animals, popular Kabuki actors and well-known beauties, which have contributed to his ongoing popularity.

The prints come from a private Las Vegas collection as well as the Pacific Asia Museum collection.

Gajin Fujita (born 1972) is a Japanese American artist whose work combines elements of traditional Japanese ukiyo-e art with contemporary American street art and Pop art, among other influences. A native of Los Angeles, Fujita has been steadily gaining international recognition since his first solo gallery exhibition a decade ago. The exhibition at Pacific Asia Museum is his first solo museum exhibition on the west coast, and is timed to coincide with Masterpieces of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi since Fujita’s work shares parallels with the work of the earlier master concerning compositional approaches, the struggle of man in nature, attention to finished surfaces of the work, and a featuring of Japanese folklore and tales of valor and the supernatural.

Herb Ritts (American, 1952–2002) was a Los Angeles-based photographer who earned an international reputation for his unique images of fashion models, nudes, and celebrities.  From the late 1970s until his untimely death from AIDS in 2002, Ritts's ability to create photographs that successfully bridged the gap between art and commerce. Herb Ritts: L.A. Style explores Ritts’s extensive photographic career, including a selection of renowned and previously unpublished photographs, as well as his directorial projects. A major portion of the works in the exhibition was newly acquired by the Getty Museum through purchase and in the form of a gift from the Herb Ritts Foundation.

Ritts’s portraits of celebrities such as Richard Gere, Britney Spears, Mel Gibson, and Madonna introduce the exhibition. The exhibition continues with Ritts’s fashion photographs, many of which drew inspiration from painting, sculpture, film, and the work of such leading fashion and portrait photographers as Richard Avedon, Horst P. Horst, George Hurrell, Irving Penn, and Louise Dahl Wolfe. Turning to Ritts’s work with the nude, the exhibition examines how Ritts — along with his contemporaries Robert Mapplethorpe and Bruce Weber — provoked a radical change in how the nude was depicted.

Ritts’s work also includes portraits of well-known athletes and dancers. In the exhibition are a series of photographs of the critically acclaimed American dancer and choreographer Bill T. Jones. In these photographs, Ritts captured Jones while he danced, framing him against a pure white background, making his muscled body look like a piece of sculpture. He also photographed famous athletes including Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Olympic gold-medalist Greg Louganis.

From 1989 until 2002, Ritts directed thirteen music videos and more than fifty commercials. Some of his music industry clients included Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey, Britney Spears, and Shakira, while his commercial clients were mainly fashion and cosmetic companies such as Chanel, Lancôme, Estée Lauder, and Calvin Klein.

Sacred Gold: Pre-Hispanic Art of Colombia from the renowned Museo del Oro in Bogotá, Colombia includes over 200 gold figures and ornaments full of expression and inventiveness inspired by the natural environment and by supernatural visions. A selection of ceramic tomb figures and stone tools accompany the exhibition.

Worshipped throughout the ancient Mediterranean by men and women, young and old, Aphrodite was connected with maritime affairs, civic harmony, and even warfare.

This exhibition presents the goddess in her manifold aspects — exploring her precursors in the ancient Near East, her offspring, and her devotees—and culminates with her incorporation and adaptation in Roman religion as Venus. It features a range of objects, from large-scale sculpture to delicate jewelry, drawn from the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the J. Paul Getty Museum, as well as major loans from Italian institutions.

Los Angeles Master Chorale Tribute to Górecki

Henryk Górecki: Lobgesang with glockenspiel
Brahms: Schaffe in mir, Gott, ein rein Herz
Henryk Górecki: Five Marian Songs
Henryk Górecki: Miserere

January 12th was both Jack London’s birthday and the opening of the new exhibition Jack London, Photographer at the Maritime Museum of San Diego.

Best known for his novel, The Call of the Wild, London's photojournalist work includes documenting events in the Pacific.

The exhibition focus is on Refugees of the Russo-Japanese War for Hearst Syndicate 1904, ruins of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, adventures in the South Sea Islands 1907-08, and rounding Cape Horn onboard, the barque, DIRIGO in 1912.

The exhibit was inspired by Jeanne Campbell Reesman, Sara S. Hodson, and Philip Adam’s  recent book Jack London, Photographer (University of Georgia Press).

Jack London (1876–1916) remains one of the most widely read American writers, known for his naturalist fiction, socialist novels and essays, journalism, and the many adventures that he shared with the world. London was also an accomplished photographer, producing nearly twelve thousand photographs during his lifetime. Jack London, Photographer, the first book devoted to London’s photography, reveals a vital dimension of his artistry, barely known until now.

London’s subjects included such peoples as the ragged homeless of London’s East End and the freezing refugees of the Russo-Japanese War, the latter photographed on assignment for the Hearst Syndicate.