Online Exhibitions

When I started at the gallery over 40 years ago, one of the things that attracted me to Japanese art was the beauty of the handmade papers in many of the works.

Each artist’s way of using high-quality kozo, gampi fiber, and handmade papers from Nepal and other countries was quite unique compared to the art of the West.

We have recently acquired a beautiful collection of Clifton Karhu’s prints. Clifton Karhu is of Finnish descent and he first arrived in Japan in 1947. I was lucky enough to meet him for the first time in Kyoto 1997.  He was the most important Western woodblock printmaker of all the famous old buildings of Kyoto.

Please enjoy Kyoto Rediscovered, an exhibition of many of Karhu’s early woodblock prints.

Ryohei Tanaka was one of the leading contemporary Japanese printmakers from the 1960’s to the present. I would meet him many times in Kyoto and he visited my gallery in the 1990’s. He was famous for his etchings of thatched roof farmhouses. The farmhouse are quickly disappearing in Japan, but his etchings of these humble simple structures will be with us forever. Like his etchings, Ryohei was a humble quiet guy who was admired by all.

Historically, the most sought-after Japanese prints are those that depict scenes of snow and rain. In Japanese imagery these prints are very peaceful, serene, and beautiful.  Bring the outside in at the Verne Gallery.

From Kyoto to the Stars is a special exhibition of Sarah Brayer’s poured washi paperworks and rare early prints and paintings.  As the days become shorter and the moon rises earlier in the sky, we chose to feature Sarah’s new aquatint on indigo dyed handmade mulberry paper, with phosphorescent pigments, Midnight Moon.

It’s the rainy season in Japan, this special exhibition is built around Daniel Kelly’s new woodblock print Slippery When Wet.

This special exhibition includes some of Kelly’s earliest and most rare landscape images, most famous lantern paintings and prints, koi prints and tea bowl images, many of which there is only one left available for sale.

Yuko Kimura’s new series Usumono is about thin transparent handmade paper layers.  Yuko Kimura won the Agnes Gund Award in 1994. Transparency, form,and texture all take priority as she constructs her one of a kind two and three dimensional handmade paper, hand stitched,  etchings, linoleum block, and experimental patchwork prints.

Her translucent kozo bark fiber lace makes each work mysterious and beautiful. Please enjoy these new works, and some works from her other series too.