A Tale of Two Balconies

A visually appealing, playful, and thought-provoking book about Katsushika Hokusai’s The Sazaidō of Gohyakurakanjiand James McNeill Whistler’s Variations in Flesh Colour and Green - The Balcony.

With a mirrored presentation that divides the book into two equal parts, A Tale of Two Balconies explores what makes each of these artworks unique. The text examines the circumstances of production and the particularity of their depicted locations in Edo Japan and Victorian England. The authors also explore the balcony as a construct that is at once both private and public. It creates a view, that allows one to visualize and juxtapose different cultural domains both within and beyond the balcony railing. These images are also immersive for the viewer, as they are tacitly included as part of the group of figures depicted within the scene.

The book is presented so the reader can pick it up from either side and begin reading; there is no ＂correct＂ order. An art-making activity invites the reader to engage further with the themes of perspective and recollection.

Dr. Kit Brooks is the Japan Foundation Assistant Curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art. Specializing in prints and paintings of Japan’s Edo (1603-1868) and Meiji eras (1868-1912), their primary research interests revolve around the reevaluation of ＂eccentric＂ artists of the eighteenth century, as well as the relationship between illustrated books and paintings, and special prints that emulate the visual qualities of other media. Brooks has held positions at the British Museum, Harvard Art Museums, and the Children’s Museum in Boston. They curated the exhibition Uncanny Japan: The Art of Yoshitoshi (1839-1892) at the Worcester Art Museum (2015) and co-curated Living Proof: Drawing in 19th-Century Japan at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation (2017-18). At the National Museum of Asian Art, Kit has worked on a number of exhibitions, including Underdogs and Antiheroes: Japanese Prints from the Moskowitz Collection (2022-2023). Kit also curated Ay-Ō’s Happy Rainbow Hell, the first exhibition of the Japanese artist AyŌ’s (b. 1931) work in the United States, and authored the accompanying catalogue.

Dr. Kerry Roeder is an assistant professor in the history of art, design and visual culture at the Maryland Institute College of Art. As a curatorial fellow at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, she curated Dewing’s Poetic Worlds, and was a co-curator of the Whistler in Watercolor and The Peacock Room in Blue and White exhibitions. She contributed to the Whistler in Watercolor exhibition catalogue and online collection catalogue. She holds a PhD in art history from the University of Delaware with a focus on nineteenth- and twentieth-century American visual culture. Her book Wide Awake in Slumberland (2014), a monograph on cartoonist Winsor McCay, was nominated for an Eisner Award. She previously worked at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the National Gallery and held fellowships at the National Portrait Gallery and the Library of Congress.