SAN ANTONIO, TX.- This spring the McNay hosts one of the most unusual modern art exhibitions ever presented in San Antonio. Focusing on Japanese art of the greater Taisho period (1900-1935), Taisho Chic: Japanese Modernity, Nostalgia, and Art Deco marks Japan's decisive encounter with urban, industrial, and international society.

Perceived as progressive, the Taisho period merged the Jazz Age with democratic politics producing "Taisho liberalism." A time of dramatic transformation and transition, the values of the native past and foreign future frequently confronted each other in stark contrast. This contest played out between two antithetical images of women, the moga or "modern girls" and the traditional "good wife, wise mother." An essential question was universal: How could one be both Japanese and modern if modernity is defined as Western?