Wooden tea spoon and case with Japanese writing etched into it.

Four Seasons in Japanese Art and Tea

Fay Boyer Preble and Virginia Cooke Murphy Wing

This thematic exhibition was instigated by History of Art and Architecture Professor Akiko Walley’s Spring 2024 seminar, Art of Tea in Japan. With support from Megumi Unno, a certified Ura Senke tea practitioner, and using objects from the JSMA’s permanent collection and loans from generous private collectors, Walley’s undergraduate and graduate students learned about the history, aesthetic principles, and practice of the Japanese “way of tea” (chadō or sadō). As a final project, the class organized groupings of seasonally themed utensils for hypothetical tea gatherings, inspired in part by designs created by students in the fall 2023 Maccha Cafe studio of Interior Architecture with Professor Solmaz Kive. Additional Japanese prints, paintings, and decorative arts reflecting seasonal themes, some drawn from recent loans and gifts from the collections of Irwin Lavenberg and Lee & Mary Jean Michels, augment the display. Co-organized by JSMA Chief Curator Anne Rose Kitagawa with assistance from East Asian Languages and Literatures PhD candidate Teppei Fukuda, this installation harnesses original research by UO faculty and students to teach about the art of Japanese tea.