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Cincinnati Art Museum displays hidden Japanese art

238 views · Published 8 May 2015 · 2:48 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: LOCAL 12 · 2015 · News & Politics

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EDEN PARK, Ohio (Josh Knight) -- Imagine finding 3,000 pieces of art in your basement,  and some of them are considered priceless. That's basically what happened at the Cincinnati Art Museum. The Cincinnati Art Museum has more than 65,000 pieces in its collection. The museum can't possibly display all of them at once. Some of the pieces were donated or sold to the museum in the late 1800s and weren't documented correctly. Because of that, the importance of some had gone undiscovered until about the last decade.    Now, they make up the Masterpieces of Japanese Art exhibit.Since the museum hired Hou-Mei Sung 13 years ago as the Asian Art Curator, she has been going through the 3,000 pieces in their Japanese collection.Each piece tells a very interesting story of the relationship between Japan and Cincinnati, dating back to the late 1800s.The suit of armor is one of the neatest stories. It was sold to the museum to pay medical school tuition for two Japanese students brought to Cincinnati by Adeline Kelsey, a pioneering female doctor.    Cincinnati had one of the only medical schools that accepted female students at the time."Preparing this show is so interesting and exciting. I'm constantly discovering new stories. There are so many objects and each object almost tells a different story," Sung said. This relationship with Japan and Cincinnati continues today. The Cincinnati area is home to more than 120 Japanese businesses. A lot of that is thanks to car manufacturing.    In fact, Thursday night at the museum the Japan America Society of Greater Cincinnati is hosting their Sakura Matsuri, their annual dinner and Hou-Mei Sung will be speaking.The exhibit only shows 100 pieces of the 3,000 in its collection.     This display will be up through the end of August and entrance to the museum is free.Follow us on Twitter @Local12 and LIKE us on Facebook for updates!

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