NURIE:The Japanese Picture Coloring Exhibition on Fri. Sep.25th 2009

Kiichi Tsutaya The Japanese Picture Coloring Exhibition in New York

September 21 – October 3, 2009 (Opening Reception on Friday, September 25th, 6:00pm – 8:00 pm)

At Tenri Cultural Institute of New York

43A West 13th Street, New York, NY 10011

Hours: Mon-Thu, 12:00pm – 6pm, Sat, 10:00am – 3:00pm, Fri and Sun, closed

My friend of Tokyo, Ms. Masa Kaneko is the director of an Nurie museum in Tokyo, and a niece of the most famous Nurie artist Mr. Kiichi Tsutaya. (Kiichi passed away at the age of 91 in February 2005.)

She is traveling and holding exhibitions in all over the world for introducing her uncle’s great Nurie arts.

I don’t remember well I was using Kiichi’s nurie books actually, but I definitely loved Nurie arts a lot when I was a little girl, and Kiichi’s arts remind me about many cute memories of my childhood….

Ms. Kaneko will hold the second New York exhibition in September, then Sake Discoveries will serve beautiful sake for guests at the reception party on Friday September 25th! Great Japanese arts with great sake… why don’t you come??

About NURIE:

Coloring pictures are thought to have originated in the Meiji Era when the government decided to incorporate Western culture into Japan, and introduced foreign music, sports, and fine and applied arts. The Meiji administration used examples of imported art from Europe to teach art to Japanese children.

The children practiced drawing by copying the pictures from the book, similar to copying of model characters that they did and still do when studying traditional calligraphy. After they traced outlines of art works, they colored them in. This is how coloring started in Japan.

In the latter half of the Meiji Era, contests were held to determine the best hand-colored postcards, and prizes were awarded to the winners. During the Taisho Period, the name of coloring book appeared, and with the wide distribution of crayons, coloring pictures quickly became popular.