A Grand Journey into Japanese art and tradtion
by: Bestsey Norgard, Public Relations
Spring 2002

Dr. Eugene Skibbe, professor emeritus of religion, acted as a key resource for the Minneapolis Institute of Arts exhibition on four generations of the Japanese Yoshida family artists.

When the Minneapolis Institute of Arts opened a major exhibit on four generations of the Japanese Yoshida family artists, one of their key resource people was Dr. Eugene Skibbe, professor emeritus of religion. He and his wife, Margaret, have built a collection over 15 years of nearly 300 works of art by various members of the Yoshida family. Nearly one-third of the pieces in the MIA exhibit are from their collection, and Skibbe also served as a lecturer at the Institute's symposium on the exhibit.

In what Skibbe calls "a grand journey together," he and Margaret have found a new world that includes not only collecting the artwork, but developing close relationships with several members of the family, and publishing books and articles about them.

This journey into Japanese art grew indirectly from two summer teaching visits at Augsburg in 1970 and 1974 by Toshi Yoshida, a third-generation Yoshida family artist. Known for his woodblock prints, he had been connected to the College by an Augsburg alumnus, Noboru Sawai from Japan. During the Skibbes' first visit to Japan in 1985, they called Yoshida, at the suggestion of art department chair Phil Thompson, and reached Yoshida's son, Tsukasa. Their first purchase was five woodblock prints—with them, their collection and a deep fascination were launched.

As Skibbe learned more about the four-generation artistic dynasty, he became interested in documenting their remarkable history. Beginning in 1989, with help from Toshi's son, he began recording and transcribing interviews with Toshi. What resulted was a book, Yoshida Toshi: Nature, Art, and Peace, about him and his work. A year later, he embarked on a similar project to explore and explain the work of Toshi's brother Hodaka, more challenging because of his abstract style. Skibbe's collection of Hodaka's prints helped nurture his own understanding.

"There is no substitute for living with works of art and taking the time—alone and in silence—to allow individual pieces to speak," Skibbe wrote in the book, Yoshida Hodaka: The Magic of Art.

Skibbe readily reflects on the dichotomy in his life as an art collector and a theologian. "There's a collision or struggle," he says. "Art is teaching me how hard it is to deal with greed and acquisitiveness," i.e., the need to have, and says that he and Margaret are learning about "the dangers connected to it as well as the joys."

He explains that the other part of his life, the gospel, is so much more important than the intellectual curiosities of looking at a picture or trying to understand an artistic career. It is the new life that arises from God's forgiveness.

In addition to the two Yoshida books he has published since his retirement in 1995, Skibbe has also continued his vocational work with the publishing of two books about the life and thought of Edmund Schlink, the German theologian who was a pioneer in the church's modern ecumenical movement and Skibbe's doctoral adviser in Heidelberg. The first, published in 1999, is a biography about Schlink's life and work; the second, published last year, is a translation of his vision of all the various churches united ecumenically in Christ.

In conjunction with the MIA exhibit, Augsburg will host an exhibit of works by seven of Toshi Yoshida's students, including his son, Tsukasa, in the Gage Family Gallery in Lindell Library. All 41 pieces in the exhibition are loaned from Gene and Margaret Skibbe's collection. The exhibition runs from March 15 to April 18; for gallery hours, see the Calendar in this issue.