On the initiative of His Excellency Nakane Takeshi, Ambassador of Japan to Germany, the Museum für Asiatische Kunst is marking the twentieth anniversary of the twinning of Tokyo and Berlin with a presentation of a selection of works by the painter Hiramatsu Reiji (born in Tokyo in 1941) from the collection of the Musée des Impressionnismes in Giverny, France.

Executed between 2010 and 2014 in accordance with the complex artistic conventions, techniques and materials of the neo-traditional nihonga style (literally 'Japanese-style paintings’), Hiramatsu Reiji’s series of paintings responds to the celebrated water lily paintings by the French painter Claude Monet (1840-1926), which in turn drew on Monet’s fascination with Japanese woodcuts.

Both artists found inspiration in the garden Monet created in Giverny. Hiramatsu’s paintings, informed by the artist’s distinctly Japanese sensibility which finds expression in the composition and materiality of his works as well as in the artist’s sensitive response to the seasons, continue the seminal exchange of ideas between Japan and Europe.