LACMA Show Features Hokusai's Great Wave with Rare Collector's Seal

Key facts

• Katsushika Hokusai's The Great Wave off Kanagawa (circa 1830–31) is on view at LACMA in the David Geffen Galleries.
• The exhibition is titled Living Landscapes, Flowing Waters and is the inaugural show in the David Geffen Galleries.
• The print bears a red seal reading "Wakai Oyaji" ("Youthful Old Man"), identifying it as once belonging to collector-dealer Wakai Kenzaburō.
• Wakai Kenzaburō was born in Tokyo and was active from the 1870s, mentoring dealer Hayashi Tadamasa.
• The 1883 Paris exhibition L'Exposition Retrospective de l'Art Japonais was organized by art historian Louis Gonse and included both Sarah Bernhardt and Wakai as exhibitors.
• A ninth-century painting by Kose no Kanaoka was among the works furnished by Wakai for the 1883 exhibition.
• Gonse's two-volume L'Art Japonais (1883) describes Wakai as "one of the most expert connoisseurs" and notes that the only complete set of Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji in Europe was in Gonse's collection.
• Other works in the gallery include Mountains in Early Spring by Terasaki Kōgyō and pieces by Kamisaka Sekka, whose seals are also examined.