COMING SOON
Japan and the Jazz Age
Victoria Cooke, curator
On February 7, the Columbia Museum
of Art opens the exhibition Japan and the
Jazz Age, a celebration of the energy and
excitement of Art Deco design in Japan
between the two world wars. During the
1920s and 1930s a new energetic spirit
pervaded art and culture across the globe,
influencing music in the form of jazz and
design in the form of the Art Deco style.
For nearly two decades, as the Japanese
government promoted patriotism and
conservative tradition, these Western art
forms influenced Japanese artists and
musicians as counter culture movements.
Japan and the Jazz Age foregrounds this
little-known artistic era with 125 objects
ranging from large paintings to intimate
woodblock prints, vases and screens to
jeweled hair pins. Each piece expresses the
Japanese