Hello, Kitty! Exploring Cats in Japanese Art

Hello, Kitty! Exploring Cats in Japanese Art    
Saturday, October 5, 2024, 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm

FREE. RSVP Required.

Whether lurking in corners or demanding center stage, cats are everywhere in Japanese art. They invite good fortune, illustrate a traditional story, or provide evidence of an unseen world of magic and supernatural happenings. 

From Edo period prints and paintings to the origins of Maneki-Neko and the worldwide phenomenon of Hello Kitty, this program offers an engaging investigation into the role domestic cats play in Japanese art and popular culture. With guest Rhiannon Paget, author of Divine Felines: The Cat in Japanese Art (2023), and hosted by Akiko Takesue, explore the origins of some of the most ubiquitous references to cats in global popular culture.   

Speakers: 

Rhiannon Paget

Rhiannon Paget holds a Master of Arts/Ph.D. from the Department of Art History and Film Studies at the University of Sydney, and is currently Curator of Asian Art at the John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art (Florida), overseeing its Asian art exhibitions and collections, including publications, collection development, and research. Previously, Paget was the Andrew W. Mellon Fellow for Japanese Art at the Saint Louis Art Museum. While in this role she co-curated the major exhibition, Conflicts of Interest: Art and War in Modern Japan, and co-authored its catalogue.

A specialist in Japanese art and culture, Paget has actively published in the field of Asian art, including Hiroshige & Eisen: The Sixty-Nine Stations along the Kisokaido (2024); co-authored with Andreas Marks, Divine Felines: The Cat in Japanese Art (2023); Saito Kiyoshi: Graphic Awakening (2021); and Hokusai (2018). She authored the Shin Nanga entry in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism and has written numerous essays, journal articles, catalogue entries, and review contributions.

Akiko Takesue

Akiko Takesue joined ROM in 2021 as the Bishop White Committee Associate Curator of Japanese Art & Culture, an endowed position. She is responsible for researching and developing the collections of Japanese art and culture in the Museum, numbering approximately 10,000 objects and ranging in date from the Jōmon period (10,000–300 BCE) to the present day. While the collection covers most of the significant areas of Japanese art, its strengths lie in woodblock prints of the 18th and 19th centuries, arms and armour, ceramics, utensils for tea practice (the Yamagami Collection), and lacquerware. Akiko is also developing a vision for the renewed Prince Takamado Gallery of Japan.

Talks at ROM are generously supported by The Schmidt Family.