Haruhisa Handa, who wears many hats as a callig-rapher, painter, singer, noh performer and philanthro-pist, held an opening ceremo-ny for a solo exhibition of his painting and calligraphy works in Tokyo on March 18.

The exhibition, which runs until March 31 at Izumi Gar-den Gallery in Tokyo’s Minato Ward, displays 182 of Handa’s more than 3,000 works, in-cluding nine paintings he re-cently completed, 23 created earlier this year and last and 150 other pieces from his portfolio.

The opening ceremony began with greetings and speeches by prominent guests, including many well-known politicians, who con-gratulated Handa, also known as Toshu Fukami, on the opening of the exhibition and his 66th birthday. The exhibi-tion is titled “Toshu Fukami’s 17th Birthday Exhibition.”

The first guest to speak was former New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, who was in office from November 2008 until December. Last month Key accepted a posi-tion as ambassador for the In-ternational Sports Promotion Society (ISPS), of which Handa is the chairman. Key has been to Tokyo several

times and has met Prime Min-ister Shinzo Abe.

The ISPS was the sole title sponsor for the ISPS Handa New Zealand Open golf tour-nament, which was held ear-lier this month. The ISPS is a major supporter of blind golf, as well as the international-ization of the Japanese golf industry, and promoter of

other sports.“On behalf of people in

New Zealand, I wish you a very happy birthday,” Key said to hundreds of attendees eager to see the Handa exhi-bition.

Other politicians in atten-dance inc luded Shizuka Kamei, who has held several ministerial posts and is also

the International Foundation for Arts and Culture (IFAC) honorary chairman; Jiro Hatoyama, a Lower House member and the son of late Liberal Democratic Party big-wig Kunio Hatoyama; Kenko Matsuki a former member of the Democratic Party; Banri Kaieda also of the Democrat-ic Party; and others.

“Dr. Fukami is often said to be today’s Da Vinci. While some people say that is an exaggeration, I truly think he is a modern Da Vinci,” said Kamei, who served as the state minister of banking and postal services from Septem-ber 2009 to June 2010 in ad-di t ion to holding other ministerial posts.

The next speaker was Koji Kinutani, an honorary profes-sor at the Tokyo University of the Arts, who said, “I learn every day from Dr. Fukami’s energy and the strength of his heart.”

After the guest speeches, Handa greeted them and the audience, thanking them for coming to enjoy the 17th birthday exhibition.

“I would like to keep trying new things. The way you feel a year is long is to do some-thing you have never done. If you do the same thing as you did last year, the time passes

really quickly,” he said.Handa has been involved in

the arts his entire life and has always taken on new chal-lenges. He took up sho callig-raphy in high school, began performing noh in college, started painting at age 35 and playing music at 40.

Handa, who is also an advi-sor to the Modern Japanese Calligraphers Association, chairman of the International Calligraphy Research Insti-tute and author of several books on calligraphy, then showed off his calligraphy skills, writing the kanji char-acter haru (spring) with a brush the size of a broom on paper the size of a table ten-nis table.

He has done live calligra-phy performances in several places in the past, including at the British Museum in No-vember 2014. His art works were also displayed at the museum.

The calligraphy demon-stration was followed by a ribbon-cutting ceremony to open the exhibition.

Handa then showed Key and his wife around the exhi-bition and explained some of his works, including “Flying Yayoi Kusama.”

In addition to ISPS, Handa is also the chairman of IFAC,

which has held international concerts in Tokyo featuring famous singers and musi-cians such as David Foster, former Chicago vocalist Peter Cetera and many others, in-cluding Grammy Award win-ners. The IFAC also holds the International High School Arts Festival every year, in which the foundation gives awards to top art works cre-ated by Japanese and foreign

high school students in the spirit of nurturing tomor-row’s artists.

He is also the chairman of the Tokyo Art Foundation (TAF), which organizes vari-ous concerts and plays.

On the philanthropic front, Handa is the chairman of Worldwide Support for De-velopment (WSD), which holds a variety of summit meetings on world welfare.

He is engaged in AIDS eradi-cation activities in Lesotho and supports orphanages and carries out other philan-thropic activities in Cambo-dia.

The Izumi Garden Gallery is four minutes from Roppon-gi-Itchome Station on the Tokyo Metro Namboku Line and eight minutes from Kami-yacho Station on the Tokyo Metro Hibiya Line.

‘Modern Da Vinci’ celebrates birthday with art exhibition

Left: Haruhisa Handa performs calligraphy at the opening ceremony of his painting and calligraphy exhibition at Izumi Garden Gallery on March 18; Right: Former New Zealand Prime Minister John Key delivers a speech at the ceremony.

Haruhisa Handa, John Key and other guests of honor prepare to cut the ribbon at the exhibition.

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