The Art of Friendship: Japanese Surimono Prints

Chester Beatty Conservation

The Chester Beatty Library’s collection of surimono and picture calendars extends to some 375 single sheet prints. Alongside these are the kyōka books and a further 116 surimono with illustrations in the Shijō style popular in Osaka and Kyoto, many of which are preserved in albums. The greater part of this collection was formed between 1954 and 1963.

Acquired by Sir Alfred Chester Beatty for his newly built Library in Dublin, the collection took shape under the specialist guidance of Jack Hillier and Beatty’s own developing interests in Japan’s printed arts. As works created through the collaboration of artists and poets in celebration of new beginnings, it is fitting that these prints were collected in that same spirit.

J 2183 before (above) and after conservation (below)

2017 marks the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and Ireland: an event precipitated in March 1957 by an exchange of letters between…

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Artistic Expressions of Math Over Seven Centuries by Allison Meier from Hyperallergic

Picturing Math at the Metropolitan Museum of Art has prints dating back to the 15th century, all expressing the beauty of mathematics.

In 2015, the Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired a series of prints of the most beautiful equations, as drawn by 10 prominent mathematicians and scientists. Mathematician Stephen Smale, for example, chose the relatively simplified numerical analysis equation known as Newton’s Method, first published in the 17th century, while theoretical physicist Steven Weinberg’s demonstration of the Lagrangian of the Electroweak Theory, which contributed to his 1979 Nobel Prize, flows over four dense lines. The 10 prints of mathematical expressions known as the Concinnitas portfolio are the core of Picturing Math: Selections from the Department of Drawings and Prints, currently on view in the Met’s Robert Wood Johnson, Jr. Gallery.

More: http://hyperallergic.com/361446/picturing-math-at-the-metropolitan-museum-of-art/