Jorg Schmeisser traveled to Antarctica on the icebreaker Aurora Australis in 1998. The result was a series of works -- etchings, drawings and paintings -- that became "Breaking the Ice," a major exhibition showing in Kyoto and scheduled for Tokyo and Yokohama, that explores the majesty and uncanny beauty of the frozen continent.
Schmeisser was born in Stolp, Germany (now Slupsk, Poland), in 1942. He grew up and studied art in Hamburg and came to Japan in the late 1960s to Kyoto City University of Arts, where he is now professor. His many travels have taken him to the Middle East, China, Cambodia, the United States and Australia, where he first went in 1976 and eventually settled with his family.
I have known Jorg since 1968 and followed his work with deep interest and admiration. His brilliant etching techniques have illuminated everything from the minute, jagged lines of earthenware shards found in the Holy Land to the elegant curves of mountain tops in Ladakh and the sweep of peneplain in Australia's red outback.