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Past Special Exhibition 2015

A Century of Perfume Bottles: Baccarat & René Lalique

Part 1: Songs in Baccarat Crystal July 17 (Fri) to September 27 (Sun), 2015
Part 2: The Fantastic Visions of René Lalique October 17 (Fri) to December 13 (Sun), 2015

Shiseido's first president, Shinzo Fukuhara (1883–1948), regarded cosmetics as “industrial crafts” that should have aesthetic appeal to the three human senses of smelling, touching and seeing. Among these, he was particularly interested in creating fragrances.
Carrying Fukuhara's idea forward as the company grew, and with the aim of making such aesthetic assets available in the future, Shiseido began collecting fragrance bottles by some of the most important designers of the time, notably those of the immensely imaginative and influential glass craftsman René Lalique (1860–1945) and the luxury crystal brand Baccarat.
This exhibition was the first public display of this scale, featuring about 200 pieces spanning the entire stylistic breadth of this collection, from Art Nouveau and Art Deco to more contemporary examples.

A World of Print-Making
— Selected Works from the Shiseido Art House Print Collection —

April 7 (Tue) to June 28 (Sun), 2015

As the title “World of Print-Making” suggests, this exhibition presents works from a variety of artists working in the realm of printing, and it aims to introduce the breadth, richness, and depth of “print making” as an art form.

Printing is a form of reverse image transfer that moves images carved into solid surfaces onto pieces of paper.
Its major advantage has always been that it allows multiple copies of the image to be printed quite easily. Technically speaking, prints can be divided into four distinct types—relief, intaglio, lithographic, and stenciled printing—and these have been used in various forms throughout history and all around the world.
This exhibition focuses mainly on modern prints, which have taken advantage of the many available techniques to offer a rich diversity of expression, and at the same time it also explores a wide range of printing mediums, including woodblock, copperplate, lithograph, silkscreen, and others.

Craft for All of Us
— An Exhibition of Shiseido’s Philosophy Making Beauty Part of Everyday Life —

January 15 (Thu) to March 29 (Sun), 2015

Shiseido has always been more than just a cosmetics company. Even since our founding in 1872, it has been our ongoing mission to bring diverse culture to the world, illuminated by our own aesthetic sensibilities, whether at the original 1902 Shiseido Soda Fountain (which would become the Shiseido Parlor) or through opening the Shiseido Gallery in 1919. In everything we create, be it a product or even just the simplest advertising pamphlet, our aspiration is to dig deep to make things that are beautiful, graceful and dignified. In each age and in step with the changing times, we take advantage of our position as a cosmetics company to advocate for beauty and quality, and to bring a sense of artistry to everyday life in general.

The exhibition Craft for All of Us, which began a three-year run this year at the Shiseido Art House, attempts to bring works of artisanal craft, now often revered as art objects, back into our everyday lives. It is an opportunity for us to renew our long-held vision of enriching people’s lives. For this year’s exhibition we solicited new works from five artisans who share our vision, and we have taken these into our Shiseido Art House collection. Through this exhibit, we aim to bring such crafts back closer to our everyday lives, to keep them as a source of joy and delight, and to ensure they remain valued into the future.