Tawaraya Sotatsu in the 16th-17th century; Ogata Korin in the 17th-18th century; Sakai Hoitsu in the 18th-19th century--throughout the Edo period, at approximately hundred-year intervals, the traditions of the Rimpa school were inherited, not through direct master-pupil relationships, but by personal affinity and reception of influence. With a synchronicity transcending their separation in time, Korin embodied Sotatsu's style and sensibility, as Hoitsu would later embody Korin's, applying them to fresh and contemporary creation. Then, in the 20th century, it was the world of radical design--not the rigid and conservative world of traditional Japanese painting--that would inherit the essence of the Rimpa school. Tanaka Ikko, the leading figure in postwar design, created a large number of posters in the 1960s and 1970s that deftly incorporated elements of traditional Japanese art, and especially the work of the Rimpa school. Tanaka can rightly be called a 20th-century Rimpa artist. But how will the Rimpa school be maintained in the 21st century? This exhibit attempts to answer that question by commissioning and displaying Rimpa-inspired posters by ten leading contemporary designers. We hope you will enjoy this competition among prospective 21st-century Rimpa masters. (Yuji Yamashita, art historian, professor at Meiji Gakuin University)