Matthew McKelway

Takeo and Itsuko Atsumi Associate Professor of Japanese Art History

Japanese Art
Ph.D., Columbia Universty, 1999

Contact Information

Phone: (212) 854-3182

Office: 919 Schermerhorn Hall
Office Hours: Tuesdays, 10-12

Biography

Matthew P. McKelway, Atsumi Associate Professor at Columbia University, specializes in the history of Japanese painting, concentrating on works produced in Kyoto and Edo from the 16th-early 19th century. His research, supported by grants from the Japan Foundation, Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Kyoto National Museum, International Research Center for Japanese Studies, and Social Science Research Council, has focused on rakuchū rakugai zu and the relationship of urban representation and politics in late medieval Kyoto, the development of genre painting in early modern Japan, individualist painters in 18th century Kyoto, and works by painters of the Kano school. Among his publications are Traditions Unbound: Groundbreaking Painters of Eighteenth-Century Kyoto, the catalogue of an exhibition he guest-curated at the Asian Art Museum in 2005, Capitalscapes: Folding Screens and Political Imagination in Late Medieval Kyoto (2006), and Chinese Romance from a Japanese Brush: Kano Sansetsu's Chōgonka Scrolls in the Chester Beatty Library (co-authored with Shane McCausland, 2009), and numerous articles and essays. Interests in the materiality and techniques of Japanese painting and the early Kano workshop have expanded into recent articles and a current book project on fan paintings as media for social intercourse and pictorial experimentation in the Muromachi through early Edo period. In addition to his research on fan paintings, he is conducting ongoing studies of the painters Nagasawa Rosetsu and Sakai Hōitsu.

The courses McKelway offers include undergraduate courses on Japanese art and Art Humanities. Topics of graduate seminars have been narrative handscrolls, Muromachi ink painting, arts of the Momoyama period, the Kano school, Rimpa, and theories of eccentricity and sinophilia in Edo-period painting. To graduate students in Japanese art history and other disciplines he also offers regular informal instruction in reading early Japanese scripts (hentaigana / kuzushiji).

Professor McKelway has held visiting positions at the Kunsthistorisches Institut, Freie Universität Berlin, Gakushūin University and Waseda University.

Selected Publications

Chinese Romance from a Japanese Brush: Kano Sansetsu's Chōgonka Scrolls in the Chester Beatty Library. London: Editions Scala, 2009. Co-authored with Shane McCausland.

Capitalscapes: Folding Screens and Political Imagination in Late Medieval Kyoto (University of Hawaii, 2006).

Traditions Unbound: Groundbreaking Painters from Eighteenth-Century Kyoto (San Francisco: Asian Art Museum, 2005).

"Muromachi jidai Kano-ha senmenga no "orijinaru": Sōga to no kanren" (The "Original" in Muromachi Period Kano-School Fan Paintings: The Relationship to Song Dynasty Paintings), in Orijinaru no yukue: Bunkazai o tsutaeru tame ni (Heibonsha, 2010).

"Kitano Kyōdō to Suwa no shinji: Muromachi jidai senmen zu no ba to kioku" (Kitano Sutra Hall and Archery at Suwa Shrine: Muromachi Fan Paintings and Shogunal Memory) in Fūzoku kaiga no bunkagaku: Toshi o utsusu media (Shibunkaku, 2009).

"Screens for a Young Warrior." Impressions v. 30 (2008-2009): 42-51.

"Autumn Moon and Lingering Snow: Kano Sansetsu's West Lake Screens." Artibus Asiae LXII: 1 (Spring, 2003): 33-80.

 

For Prospective Graduate Students in Japanese Art: Prior to entry into the program, prospective students should have completed at least three years of study in Japanese, preferably with at least one year spent in Japan. Further requirements are detailed in the Ph.D. student handbook.