Author Description

A survey of the work of Tawaraya Sotatsu (died ca. 1640), the Japanese painter who founded the historic Rinpa school with designer calligrapher Hon'ami Koetsu (1558-1637). Essays by leading scholars from the United States and Japan focus on Sōtatsu's well-known Waves at Matsushima screens; his collaboration with Koetsu; his varied roles as shopkeeper, compiler, and court painter; and his influence over other artists (the I'nen seal paintings). The book also examines Freer Gallery founder Charles Lang Freer's role in introducing Sōtatsu and Koetsu to the Western world. This is the first time this important artist will be surveyed in the West and provides an opportunity to unite Japanese masterworks with prescient acquisitions of Sōtatsu made by American collectors in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.With 308 illustrations.