Major gifts put Mia on the map as center for Japanese art

Two exhibitions open this weekend at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Both feature artwork from Japan, and both are the result of major donations.

Walking briskly through several galleries filled with Japanese pottery, paintings and lacquerware, Chief Curator Matthew Welch highlighted just a few of the hundreds of new works the Minneapolis Institute of Art has received from the estate of Mary Griggs Burke. He stopped with a smile before a lacquered box, decorated with the image of — of all things — a fly whisk.

"Buddhist priests vow — or all Buddhists vow — not to take life," he explained. "So if you're being bothered by insects, you can gently brush them away, but Zen priests also used them to symbolically brush their disciples. The idea being that they're brushing away the impediments to enlightenment."

The image of the fly whisk is made with both lead and gold, and Welch said it's indicative of Mary Burke's very skilled eye.

"This wasn't just a sort of New York society lady decorating her apartment," he said. "This was a very serious collector who took classes in Japanese art and who understood that she needed to seek out experts."

Burke, who died in 2012, left the museum 670 art objects along with a $12.5 million dollar endowment to be used to support programming and new acquisitions. The gift is the result of a long-term relationship with the St. Paul native — a relationship that was well underway when Matthew Welch arrived at the Minneapolis Institute of Art 25 years ago.

"This is a huge deal," he said. "This is transformative for us."

The Burke Collection is just the latest in a string of gifts to the museum that have dramatically expanded its Japanese art collection.

Back in 2002, the museum received a gift of 170 wood-block prints from Fred and Ellen Wells, with the condition that the museum not show them until it had published a comprehensive catalog to accompany the exhibition.

The project sat on a back burner until curator Andreas Marks arrived at the Minneapolis Institute of Art in 2013, accompanied by 1,700 more Japanese works of art from California collectors Elizabeth and Willard Clark. Now the catalog is published, and the Wells' prints — known as shin hanga — are on display. Marks said he hopes viewers are transported by the images that date from the 1920s and '30s. Japanese jazz music playing in the gallery serves to accentuate the mood.

"The colors are very rich, vivid," he said. "A lot of these prints are embossed, so you need to look at the details, where you can see that there is a white pattern in a robe or a little bit of gold going around a mirror frame. So the quality standard is very high."

The exhibition, titled "Seven Masters," focuses on the work of seven printmakers who were also known for their talents as painters. Frederick Wells loved to collect along three themes: beautiful women, kabuki theater and landscapes. All are represented in masterful detail.

Museum Director Kaywin Feldman said Mia is becoming a center for the study and enjoyment of Japanese art. In addition to the large gifts of artwork, the museum has hired a new curator, acquired thousands of Japanese books, and has received an additional $6 million bequest for programming around Asian art.

Exhibitions of both the Burke Collection and the Wells collection open to the public this weekend. But museum-goers will be enjoying the beauty of these two collections for years to come.