Kansai Yamamoto is one of the founding fathers of Japanese contemporary fashion. Best known for his work during the 1970s and 1980s, his avant-garde designs are inspired by the colorful Azuchi-Momoyama period (1568-1600) and traditional Kabuki theatre. The exuberant Pop-like quality of his work contrasts with what is today associated with Japanese fashion, Zen-like simplicity and deconstructed silhouettes.

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the royal painting workshops of the Mughal emperors introduced to the Indian subcontinent a type of portraiture based on accurate renderings of physiognomy and individualized facial features. This new, more naturalistic manner of representing the human figure was at the same time highly idealized and formulaic.

What makes a king or noble honorable? How does a hero act? The seven illustrations in this exhibition come from manuscripts created in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries under the Safavid rulers of Iran (Persia) and the Mughals of India. Each demonstrates a feat of heroism or an act of justice befitting a good Islamic ruler.

The masterpieces in this exhibition encompass nearly a millennium of art from across the Himalayan region (centered on Tibet and Nepal) and from neighboring areas under its cultural influence.