VBMA Kicks Off 45th International Lecture Series with Japanese Art Focus

The Vero Beach Museum of Art is bringing world-class scholarship to the Treasure Coast this season. The museum's 45th International Lecture Series launches November 30, 2026, and this year's theme is impossible to miss, three distinguished speakers will unpack the culture, history, and artistry behind Japanese woodblock prints, timed alongside a major touring exhibition making its U.S. debut right here in Vero Beach.

The Exhibition Behind It All

Running from November 21, 2026 through February 7, 2027, Hokusai, Hiroshige, Hasui: Japanese Landscapes in Print arrives at VBMA fresh from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The exhibition traces the legacy of three masters of Japanese printmaking and offers visitors a rare opportunity to experience these iconic works in person. The lecture series was designed specifically to give that experience deeper context, each talk connects directly to the themes and figures at the heart of the show.

Three Speakers, Three Perspectives

The series opens on November 30 with Tokyo-based art historian Dr. Noriko Murai, a professor at Sophia University, who will explore the surprising connections between Japanese, French, and American artists of the 19th century. Her lecture, Cross-Cultural Currents: Water in 19th Century Japanese, French, and American Art, examines how water, from Hokusai's iconic cresting wave to Monet's still ponds, became one of the era's most powerful and recurring artistic motifs. Far from a surface-level comparison, Dr. Murai frames the ocean as both a physical route for cultural exchange and a symbol of a world in rapid transformation.

On January 11, 2027, Andreas Marks, Ph.D., curator of Japanese and Korean Art at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, takes the stage with a deep dive into one of art history's most celebrated print series. Hiroshige's One Hundred Famous Views of Edo: Behind the Scenes of a Celebrated Japanese Woodblock Print Series goes beyond the images themselves to examine the bustling commercial print market of 1850s Japan. Hiroshige's series captured 118 distinct scenes of Edo, the city now known as Tokyo, and Marks will illuminate what it took to produce and distribute work at that scale in a pre-modern economy driven by popular demand.

The series wraps up on February 1, 2027 with an entirely different kind of voice. Pico Iyer, bestselling author, journalist, and contributor to publications including The New York Times, Harper's, and Time, brings nearly four decades of lived experience in Japan to his lecture, The World Within the Image. Having spent 39 years in and around the ancient capitals of Kyoto and Nara, Iyer offers an intimate perspective on what Japanese art reveals about Japanese life: a culture where trees hold the status of official city guardians, where emotion stays largely private, and where the worldview of Hiroshige and Hokusai still quietly shapes the present.

Mark Your Calendar

All three lectures are held on Monday afternoons at 4:30 p.m. at the Vero Beach Museum of Art. The series is made possible through the generous support of the Harry and Virginia Van Wormer Lecture Fund, along with a number of supporting and patron sponsors.

For tickets and additional information, visit: vbmuseum.org/international-lecture-series.

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Ava Cook

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My name is Ava Cook and I am a Freshman at Florida Southern College in Lakeland FL. I am currently a B.F.A musical theatre major with a minor in Business Administration. I love reading, singing, acting, dancing, and writing. My favorite part about Vero Beach and Indian River County as a whole is how close the community is. Vero Vine is important to me as it allows me to do my part it bringing the community together also, sharing events, small businesses, and other local happenings. If you have any questions or any recommendations for me, my email is always open [email protected].