Private Art Tour: Japanese Laborers in Hawai’i

Asia Society Switzerland invites you to a private tour of the exhibition «A Painting for the Emperor:
 Japanese Laborers on Sugar Plantations in Hawai’i» at the Johann Jacobs Museum guided by its director, Roger Buergel.

This exhibition is centered around a famous oil painting of Japanese laborers working on a Hawaiian sugar cane plantation painted by J. Strong on commission to the Hawaiian King Kalākaua (1836- 1891), who intended it to be a personal gift to the Japanese emperor. After an extensive restoration by Japanese conservators, this exhibition displays the painting for the first time outside of Japan, reconstructing its historical context and the lives of its protagonists. The work will serve as the center of a wide-ranging exhibition that will feature several themes, all related to Japan at the end of the nineteenth century and the lives of ordinary Japanese citizens of the Meiji period.

This exhibition was created in collaboration with the University of Zurich, Prof. Dr. Hans Bjarne Thomsen, Section for East Asian Art and Prof. Dr. Martin Dusinberre, Global History.

This event is held in cooperation with the Johann Jacobs Museum.

Image Credit: Joseph Dwight Strong, Japanese Laborers on the Sugar Plantation in Spreckelsville/Maui,1885, Oil on Canvas, Collection of Mitsui Sugar Co., Ltd. in Japan, Courtesy Johann Jacobs Museum