Paper short abstract:

The collecting partnership forged between advisor-specialist Jack Hillier (1912-95) and retired mining magnate Alfred Chester Beatty (1875-1968) is examined through contemporary correspondence, publications and the collection of Japanese prints and printed books they jointly created.

Paper long abstract:

In April 1954, London dealers Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. notified Alfred Chester Beatty (1875-1968) of a collection of six hundred Japanese prints readied for sale. Beatty seized the opportunity and purchased the prints for his growing Library on Dublin's Shrewsbury Road. Seeking to refine this 'ready-made' collection, Beatty then made contact with Jack Hillier (1912-95) who had—in serendipitous fashion—just published his first book on things Japanese, Japanese Masters of the Colour Print (London: Phaidon, 1954).

Over the next decade, a productive collecting partnership was forged between print-specialist Hillier and retired mining magnate Beatty that far exceeded Beatty's more modest original intentions. Initially, Beatty perceived this collection as one that would play an institutional role—part of the legacy he was shaping in Ireland—and not as an area in which he found great personal interest. Caught by Hillier's enthusiasm, however, it was not long before Beatty expanded the scope of his aims to fully embrace Japan's woodblock-printed books. Later, he found his own collecting passion in the luxurious surimono prints prepared for Edo's kyōka poets. Throughout, Hillier's acuity and market knowledge guided the selection of works to form a collection of impressively high quality. At the same time, Hillier was preparing further books and articles that sought to inject new life into the collecting and appreciation of Japan's printed arts more widely.

Drawing together the extensive correspondence between Hillier, Beatty and Beatty's library staff, and the prints and printed books these letters document, this paper examines the balance of the partnership behind this collection and the ambitions it came to embody.

Paper short abstract:

Through a close reading of Hillier’s major publications on the illustrated book in early modern Japan, and surveys of the collections he helped form, I will seek to define Hillier’s approach to this vast body of material, delineate his 'ideal collection’, and assess his contribution to the field.

Paper long abstract:

The English scholar, connoisseur and collector Jack Hillier put the appreciation of Japanese illustrated books on a new footing with his publications of the 1970s and 1980s: The uninhibited brush: Japanese art in the Shijō style (London: H.M. Moss, 1974); The art of Hokusai in book illustration (London: Sotheby Parke Bernet and Berkley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1980), Japanese prints: 300 years of albums and books (with Lawrence Smith, London: British Museum Publications Ltd., 1980); the massive two-volume The art of the Japanese book (London: Sotheby’s Publications, 1987); and his last publication, The Japanese picture book: a selection from the Ravicz collection (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1991). Through his publications, he not only alerted us to the rich store of images that lay between the pliant covers of these woodblock-printed books, he also brought the work of artists of the Maruyama-Shijō school to a wider audience, and unapologetically treated explicit erotica as a significant facet of the art of the book in Japan.

In parallel with his publications, Hillier assembled an important personal collection of Japanese books. The British Museum’s acquisition of his collection in 1979 materially enhanced its holdings. At the same time, Hillier advised three outstanding private collectors—Gerhard Pulverer, Chester Beatty, and Robert Ravicz—in the formation of their collections. Those collections now rest in the National Museum of Asian Art (Washington), the Chester Beatty Library (Dublin), and the Chiba City Museum respectively.

Hillier's wide-ranging, richly illustrated and fluently written monographs, and the presence in public institutions on three continents of the four collections he helped shape, has guaranteed his continued influence on our understanding of the illustrated book in early modern Japan.

On the basis many days spent—over four decades—working with each of the four collections mentioned above, coupled with the close reading of Hillier's publications, I will seek to define his approach to this vast body of material, delineate his 'ideal collection’ and assess his lasting contribution to Japanese art history and the history of the book in early modern Japan.

Paper short abstract:

Jack Hillier, a scholar of Edo-period illustrated books and ukiyo-e prints, was also an advocate of ‘Shijō’ school painted and printed works. His 1974 book, The Uninhibited Brush, presented an original insight into the field and had a significant impact on both private and public collecting.

Paper long abstract:

In orthodox Japanese art history discourse, Maruyama Ōkyo (1733-1795) and Go Shun (Matsumura Gekkei, 1752-1811), the two founders of the Maruyama and Shijō schools respectively, have consistently been recognised among the most influential artists in the late Edo period. They are regarded highly often for having brought a fresh breeze into the traditions of Japanese painting with their new approaches to realism and naturalism. This stance is evident since the establishment of art history of Japan as a modern scientific discipline in the late 19th century.

Such a textbook view of Ōkyo, Go Shun and their talented pupils who enhanced the popularity and longevity of their style, however, did not necessarily induce the warmest appreciation of their works among Western collectors, although they collected Maruyama-Shijō paintings as representative specimens of Japanese art. Jack Hillier’s substantial publication on what he calls ‘Shijō style’, The Uninhibited Brush (1974), arguably, ushered in a change in attitude.

Hillier considered their works across various media – paintings, prints (surimono) and illustrated books – to cover a range of the artists’ activities in response to their clients’ requests, many of whom were urban bourgeois active in clubs for cultural pursuits. He also taught his readers how to articulate the sense of appreciation we find in Maruyama-Shijō works: brush strokes, amateurism, eccentricity, naturalism and lyricism.

Hillier himself amassed a large collection of Edo-period illustrated books, which are now in the British Museum. Also collected by him were paintings and calligraphy that would have fit within his understanding of the ‘Shijō style’, which are in the collections of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and the British Museum. Based on the items he collected and his publications, this paper will reassess his view of Maruyama-Shijō art and will review the direction that acquisitions at the British Museum have taken since Hillier’s rediscovery of this field with his sensitive and meticulous approach.