The Yamatane Museum of Art, which opened in 1966 as Japan's first art museum specializing in nihonga, celebrates its fifty-fifth anniversary in 2021. To commemorate that milestone, we are holding a special exhibition focusing on Hayami Gyoshū (1894–1935), the nihonga artist who has become the face of our collection, and his student Yoshida Yoshihiko (1912–2001), presenting works created with these artists' transcendent techniques.

Gyoshū, his work highly regarded by Yokoyama Taikan and Kobayashi Kokei, was recommended to join the Inten (Japan Art Institute Exhibition) when he was just twenty-three. As he said, "The courage to climb to the top of the ladder is noble, while those who climb down from the perch and then climb back up it are all the more noble." He constantly explored new styles and techniques based on the classics, creating new currents in the nihonga art world until his early death at the age of forty. Yoshihiko began studying with Gyoshū at the age of seventeen and, through experiences including participation in the project to copy the Hōryūji temple wall paintings, developed his own unique artistic universe known as the "Yoshida style," employing gold leaf and crumpled paper to capture the weathered beauty of vintage paintings.

Gyoshū and Yoshihiko are both painters who established their own inimitable styles, grounded in traditional techniques yet infused with their own precise and highly original adaptations. We hope this exhibition will offer visitors a glimpse into the worlds of transcendental technique pursued by this master and his disciple.