University of Nebraska–Lincoln faculty Karen Kunc and Ikuho Amano will offer insight on artist Helen Frankenthaler’s 34-color woodblock print “Tales of Genji I” — and the literary work that inspired it — in a live Zoom event at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 17.
Registration to join the Zoom conversation is available here.
Sheldon Museum of Art recently acquired the artwork, which is one of Frankenthaler’s visual meditations on the text and earliest illustrations of “The Tale of Genji,” an 11th-century literary work generally considered the world’s first novel. Written by Murasaki Shikibu, a lady-in-waiting in Japan’s imperial court during the Heian period, the story follows the life of fictional Prince Genji, the disowned son of an ancient emperor.
Amano is an associate professor of Japanese. Her areas of research and teaching include modern Japanese literature, popular culture, film and language. Her recent research has explored Japan’s decadent literature in comparative contexts, material culture and body politics in the post-WWII decades.
Kunc is a printmaker and Willa Cather Professor emeritus of art. Along with a career distinguished by 38 years in teaching, 110 solo exhibitions and numerous awards, Kunc is founder of Constellations Studios, an exhibition space and workshop in Lincoln.
Melissa Yuen, associate curator of exhibitions at Sheldon, will moderate the conversation. Frankenthaler’s “Tales of Genji I” is on view at Sheldon’s Focus Gallery through December.
