Deco Japan: Shaping Art and Culture, 1920–1945

Deco Japan is the first exhibition held outside of Tokyo dedicated to Japanese Art Deco. This exhibition provides dramatic examples of the spectacular craftsmanship and sophisticated design long associated with Japan and conveys the complex social and cultural tensions during the Taishō and early Shōwa periods (1912-1945). In these pre-war and war eras, artists and patrons created a Japanese modernism that signaled simultaneously the nation’s unique history and cosmopolitanism. The vitality of the era is further expressed through the theme of moga, or modern girl, the emblem of contemporary urban chic that flowered along with the Art Deco style in the 1920s and 1930s.

Deco Japan includes nearly 200 works from the Levenson Collection, the world’s premier collection of Japanese art in the Deco style, including spectacular examples of metalwork, ceramics, lacquer, glass, furniture, jewelry, textiles, graphic design, painting, and printmaking.

Exhibition overview from museum website