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Lasting Impressions
Written By: Billy Love | Issue: September - 2022
The glories of the Land of the Rising Sun are unveiled at The Bascom.
The Bascom’s exploration of the idea of “Place” thisyear continues with a special exhibition that bringsthe beauty and richness of a faraway place to thePlateau through the visual arts.In September, 60 of the finest Japanese prints in theRead-Simms Collection at Charleston’s Gibbes Museumof Art will be on display at The Bascom in the BunzlGallery. This exhibit of exceptional and rare printsentitled Lasting Impressions will provide Western NorthCarolina residents and visitors an opportunity to view oneof the nation’s most significant collections of Japanesewoodblock prints.Amassed by Motte Alston Read of Charleston and hissister Mary Read Hume Simms of New Orleans duringthe first two decades of the 20th century – a perioddubbed the “Golden Age” of Japanese print collecting inAmerica – the collection is one of the earliest of its kindin the Southeast and offers the full range of popular printsubjects created by master ukiyo-e artists of the EdoPeriod in Japan.Programing for the exhibition includes a curator talk withSara Arnold, The Gibbes Museum Director of CuratorialAffairs, set for 11:00 A.M. Saturday, Sept 17. This event isfree and open to the public.As the Director of Curatorial Affairs at the GibbesMuseum of Art, Ms. Arnold oversees special exhibitionsand is responsible for the study, care, and interpretation ofthe museum’s permanent art collection. She has curatedover 35 special exhibitions and served as a contributingauthor or editor to numerous exhibition cataloguesincluding Lasting Impressions: Japanese Prints fromthe Read-Simms Collection (2021). This striking, fullyillustrated catalogue from the Gibbes Museum of Artfeatures entries by Japanese fine art specialist SebastianIzzard and an in-depth essay on the collectors by SaraC. Arnold and Stephen G. Hoffius. Catalogues will beavailable in The Bascom Shop for purchase.The exhibition will be on display at The Bascom fromSeptember 10 through December 3. A public receptionwill be held on Thursday, September 15, from 5:00 –6:30 P.M.
by Billy Love, The Bascom
