5 major currents in Asian Art right now

Following India’s independence in 1947, a new generation of artists surged forth with work that drew on classical Indian art as well as an emergent global modernist language. Both associates of the Progressive Artists’ Group, Tyeb Mehta and Maqbool Fida Husain became pivotal figures in the trajectory of contemporary art in South Asia.

On view at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art Saket, New Delhi, until 30 June 2026, Tyeb Mehta: Bearing Weight (with the lightness of being) is the first retrospective dedicated to the Indian modernist painter. Across more than 120 works spanning painting, drawing, sculpture, and archival material as well as an early short film, the diagonal emerges as a dominant motif.

It became central to Mehta’s practice after his 1968 arrival in New York, where he had a decisive encounter with Minimalism. By the mid-1970s he had distilled the diagonal into stark geometric tableaux, which can be seen in an important painting by Mehta that will be offered in South Asian + Modern and Contemporary Art Gesture (1977). A seminal formative work, Puppet Dancers, by Mehta’s contemporary M.F. Husain also in the sale exemplify his Cubist influences.

An early 1960s painting by the enfant terrible of Indian art, Francis Newton Souza, depicts a reclining nude that is being absorbed into the surrounding landscape. Though Souza was best known for his contribution to international modernism, his legacy looms large in the contemporary art world. The sixth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, in Kerala (through 31 March 2026), is curated by the multidisciplinary artist Nikhil Chopra in collaboration with an artist-run organisation in Goa — Souza’s birthplace.

With Japanese anime films now regularly outperforming American releases at the box office, recent exhibitions devoted to manga — including at the Guimet National Museum of Asian Arts, Paris, and the de Young Museum, San Francisco — have set new standards for scholarship in the field. Ahead of Shojo Manga Infinity: Moto Hagio, Ryoko Yamagishi, and Waki Yamato at the National Art Center, Tokyo, next autumn, it is an opportune moment to consider how Japanese popular culture shapes the global visual imagination.

A natural starting point is Osamu Tezuka, the godfather of manga. Best known as the creator of Astro Boy — which he adapted into the first broadcast television anime — Tezuka also pioneered early shōjo manga with Princess Knight, a work that influenced later global successes by other authors, such as Sailor Moon and The Rose of Versailles. This original ink and watercolor on paper was created as an opening illustration for the Princess Knight series, and was later published in a 1953 issue of Shōjo Club (Girls’ Club). Among the earliest illustrations from Princess Knight, one of the earliest and most influential works in the shōjo manga genre, and is offered in Anime Starts Here: Japanese Subculture Reimagines Tradition.

Samurai, an exhibition at the British Museum (through 4 May 2026), borrows an idea from 20th-century historians Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger’s 1983 book The Invention of Tradition for a timely re-examination of the Japanese samurai as a co-creation of medieval reality and modern imagination.

One contemporary iteration of the samurai myth can be found in the 2019 Taro Okamoto Award for Contemporary Art award–winner Shiomi Ryosuke’s Wolf on the Amour (2019).

The creations of craftspeople, such as the offered ‘moon jar’ from the 18th-century Joseon dynasty of Korea, are today receiving renewed attention and respect from collectors and institutions alike. Known in Korean as dal hangari — literally ‘moon jars’ — were made by anonymous potters at the Bunwon kilns near Seoul during the great Joseon dynasty. Moon jars have since become an emblem of national pride.

A remarkable opportunity to learn more about the history of such objects comes on 7 March with the opening of Korean National Treasures: 2,000 Years of Art at The Art Institute of Chicago. Running through 5 July 2026, the show features 140 works, twenty-two of which are officially designated National Treasures or Treasures by the Korean government.

A number of exhibitions opening for Asia Week New York will emphasize the contemporary relevance of folk art and ceramics. The Infinite Artistry of Japanese Ceramics at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (through 8 August 2027) draws on the museum’s Harry G. C. Packard Collection of ceramics and other works of Japanese heritage to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the collection. Opening on 10 March at the Japan Society, Kawai Kanjiro: House to House will highlight the life and work of the potter, artist and poet Kawai Kanjirō (1890–1966), an important contributor to the Japanese Mingei (folk craft) movement of the mid-1920s.

Kanjiro had a deep admiration for the unpretentious beauty and functional, hand-crafted aesthetic of local, like those of the the Ainu, the Indigenous people of Japan’s northernmost main island, Hokkaido. An excellent example of their work in the upcoming sale hails from the Estate of Ralph E. Phillips and Dorothy W. Phillips. This Ainu coat reflects the Ainu’s distinct cultural tradition from the mainland Japan. Kaparamip and ruunpe are terms for their traditionally appliquéd and embroidered robes.

Opening on 21 March 2026 and running through 27 September 2026, Legendary Landscapes: Sublime Visions from China’s Song Dynasty at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri draws on the museum's collection of Chinese landscape painting, or shanshui (mountain and water, ‘landscape’). Masterpieces from the Song dynasty (960–1279) period include Xu Daoning’s Fishermen’s Evening Song (circa 1039–52), a handscroll executed in ink on silk.

A relevant piece on offer at Christie’s the same month sheds light on the cross-cultural approaches to such genres of painting. This rare triptych of hanging Japanese scrolls from the Muromachi period (1392–1573) takes inspiration from the Chinese paintings of Song and Yuan dynasties. This ink on paper work is an example of combining Buddhism (the figure of Kishi Monju in the center seated on a lion, symbolizing the triumph of wisdom overobstacles) and Daoism (the figures on the sides).

Bolder than the crane, the dragon has long stood as a supreme and awe-inspiring figure in Chinese storytelling — a water deity symbolising power, cosmic authority, and transformation, with origins tracing back over 5,000 years to the Neolithic Hongshan culture. A ‘Dragon’ moon flask offered at Christie’s dovetails with the major exhibition Beyond Time: The History, Culture and Art of Sakya Monastery at the Palace Museum, Beijing (through 10 May 2026). Founded in 1073 on the Qinghai–Xizang Plateau between the Himalayas and the Yarlung Zangbo River, Sakya Monastery is the birthplace of the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism, a tradition that played a distinctive role in the consolidation of China as a unified state.

In the sale of Indian, Himalayan and Southeast Asian Art on 25 March during Asia Art Week, a related work from Chinese Buddhist history will also be offered: A large painted thangka of Arhat Bakula, one of the Sixteen Arhats, identifiable by the jewel spitting mongoose he cradles. The Qianlong court used thangka sets to affirm both religious political allegiances, and during the 18th century, Tibetan-style Buddhism flourished amid a period of cultural interchange between China, Mongolia and Tibet.

The mortise-and-tenon joinery and lacquered finishes of traditional East Asian furniture, particularly Classical Chinese furniture, has become more sought after than ever for their exquisite craftsmanship, elegant silhouettes and durable construction.

With psychedelic colours, this Tibetan polychrome wood cabinet is a show unto itself, featuring drawers and compartments animated by spirals, floral vases and exotic animals.

Delicate and intricately worked details lend this huanghuali trestle-leg table a refined grace and sophistication not usually seen in oversized furniture. Its form is characteristic of qiaotou’an, or ‘everted-end recessed-leg table,’ although the late Ming style-maker Wen Zhenheng also termed it bizhuo, or ‘wall table,’ for this type of table’s common placement flush with a wall to display art or hold offerings.