The Japanese mingei movement and Catalan artists

The last issue of Kamizono (n. 19, may 2018), academic journal of the Meiji Jingu Research Institute (Tokyo), has published a summary of my lecture on “The Japanese Mingei movement and Catalan artists” held in Paris last October 2017 (INALCO, Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales): .

The article focuses on presenting how Eudald Serra and Cels Gomis came into contact with some aspects of the mingei movement during their years of residence in Japan, between 1935 and 1948, and how, as from mid 20th century, they began to promote several initiatives to publicize the mingei movement in Catalonia. Among these initiatives, highlighted the organization of mingei exhibitions, the first of them celebrated in 1950 using their own Japanese folk crafts collections formed in Japan. Over several decades, many of the mingei movement key figures, such as Yanagi Sōetsu, Hamada Shōji, Kawai Kanjirō, Bernard Leach, Munakata Shikō, Serizawa Keisuke and Komenami Shōichi came in contact with their Catalan partners, Eudald Serra, Cels Gomis, Josep Llorens Artigas, Joan Gardy Artigas and Joan Miró. As a result of these contacts, during the second half of the 20th century the artistic relations between the two cultures became stronger.