The exhibition was sponsored by an anonymous donor and supplemented by grants from Fujikura Composite America, Inc. and Mr. Kimio Yamanoi.
The exhibition was funded in part by the City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture and the County of San Diego Community Enhancement Program.
A catalogue, _MINGEI – Two Centuries of Japanese Folk Art,_ published by the Japan Folk Crafts Museum, accompanied the exhibition.
In the 1920s, Japanese scholar and aesthetician Dr. Sōetsu Yanagi recognized the unsurpassed beauty of objects created for daily use and coined the word mingei by combining the Japanese _min_ (all people) and _gei_ (art) to describe these arts of all people. To communicate this profound insight, Dr. Yanagi and the renowned potters Shōji Hamada and Kanjiro Kawai founded the Mingei Association of Japan and, in Tokyo, the Japan Folk Crafts Museum.
Composed of 140 objects chosen by Sōetsu Yanagi for the Mingeikan’s permanent collection, many were from the 19th century and included some of the finest objects used in Japanese daily life: kimono, fireman’s coats, rain capes, ceramics, tools and domestic utensils, chests, screens, scrolls, folk paintings and shop signs. They were made of wood, metal, paper, lacquer and natural fibers.
Playing continuously in the exhibition were films on traditional crafts of Japan. Educational events related to the exhibition were performances March 11-14 by Icarus Puppet Company of “The Crane Daughter,” based on a Japanese legend and using Bunraku style puppets.