MISAKO MITSUI & MITSUI FINE ARTS INC.
For many generations, the families of Misako Mitsui and her late husband, the Endo and Mitsui, have been members of the enlightened merchant class of Kyoto, the Machi-shu, closely involved as patrons and participants in the Way of Tea. She has dedicated Mitsui Fine Arts, Inc., to the great aesthetic contributions of the Kyoto schools whose creations of exquisite simplicity concentrate feeling and observation in a uniquely refined and satisfying way.
During her education and early professional career, Misako Mitsui focused on contemporary western art, until a chance encounter with a Kyo-ha scroll directed her back to her roots. This awareness of modernist, and especially minimalist, styles of western art made her sympathetic to the visual and poetic compression that marks the best of Kyo-ha. Over the last several years, she has renewed long-standing relationships with venerable Tea Masters and private art dealers in Kyoto, who very generously became mentors and provided entrČe into the graciously cloistered world of Kyo-ha painting. Educated as a child in the intricacies of the Way of Tea, this specialized aesthetic training is at the core of her intimacy with Kyo-ha painting, and also informs her knowledge and appreciation of modernist and contemporary art. The Endo family's centuries-long involvement in the area of textile design for Kyoto's flourishing kimono industry provides an additional base of expertise for advising collectors. The Mitsui family of Japan inaugurated the Mitsui Memorial Museum in October 2005 in Nihonbashi, a site closely related to the Mitsui family, focusing on treasures of Japanese and Asian art collected over the past three centuries.
