2021 Autumn Special Exhibition,
“Motoju Miyosawa, Stencil Dyer”
September 4 (Sat)－December 14 (Tue)

　Motoju Miyosawa (1909-2002) was born in Matsumoto City, Nagano prefecture in central Japan. An outstanding stencil dyer, he produced a variety of works and contributed to the birth and development of the Mingei movement in Matsumoto City.
　Miyosawa first encountered the Mingei movement when, after graduating from Matsumoto business school, he moved to Shizuoka prefecture to help his relatives running a dyeing shop. There, the works of Keisuke Serizawa (1895-1984) inspired Miyosawa to become a dyer himself.
　Miyosawa produced a variety of works, such as folding screens, panels, noren curtains and kimonos, using stencil techniques that required him to complete the whole process himself, from designing to dyeing.
　In 1939 Miyosawa met Soetsu Yanagi (1889-1961), the founder of the Mingei movement, whom he continued to respect as his mentor for the rest of his life. Yanagi had great expectations of Miyosawa and entrusted him with the binding of Kogei magazines and Yanagi’s representative essays including “Shokoku no dobin (Earthen ware teapots of various places in Japan)” and “Hita no sarayama (Potteries of Hita, Kyushu, Japan)”.
　After Yanagi’s death, Miyosawa set out from the center of the Mingei movement to start walking in the mountains of Shinshu (Nagano prefecture), enjoying classical music and overseas travel, in search of inspiration. Gathering en route various motifs that touched his heart—from his hometown mountains, their flora and fauna, and the townscapes, ruins and music of exotic lands—Miyosawa went on to produce masterpieces sympathetic to the magnificent sights and the lives of the people he had encountered.
　This spring exhibition is a precious opportunity to view some 200 of Miyosawa’s works. Please enjoy Miyosawa’s vividly interwoven world of color and design, now bold, now poetic, now lovely.