Elizabeth Lillehoj is a Professor of Japanese Art History at DePaul University, Chicago where she teaches courses on the arts of Asia. Her book, Art and Palace Politics in Japan, 1580s–1680s, was published by Brill in the Japanese Visual Culture Series in 2011. She was also the editor of Critical Perspectives on Classicism in Japanese Painting, 1600–1700 (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2004), Acquisition: Art and Ownership in Edo-Period Japan (Floating World Editions, 2007), and Archaism and Antiquarianism in Korean and Japanese Art (Art Media Resources and Center for the Art of East Asia, University of Chicago, 2013).
Award Information
I am undertaking a study of women as artists and patrons of art during the early modern (circa 1500-1868) and modern (1868-present) periods of Japanese history. Women may not have shared an equal social footing with men at this time, but they did make significant contributions to art. Women created and sponsored many treasured works: paintings, calligraphy, lacquer and ceramic wares, as well as architectural monuments. I will be studying the contributions of women from various classes from high-ranking, respected women of warrior families to low-ranking merchant townswomen -- all of whom played key roles in the formation of new modes of artistic expression.
