"Four Great Ukiyoe Masters" Exhibition

Daimaru Museum Tokyo

Finished

Artists

Utamaro Kitagawa, Toshusai Sharaku, Hokusai Katsushika, Hiroshige Utagawa

Ukiyoe woodblock prints took as their subject the customs of the common people of the Edo period, their lifestyles, famous actors and popular beauties, renowned landscapes and so on. Using a printing method that at the time allowed production of the prints in large quantities, ukiyoe quickly became widely disseminated and a familiar art form in the lives of Edo citizens. In addition, the artistic worth of these works received favorable attention abroad from early on. Their innovative structure and composition, use of color, and spare, concise delineation of their subject was much admired by Impressionist artists like Van Gogh and Renoir, and went on to influence much of their work.
The four ukiyoe masters whose achievements in the field represent the summit of the flowering of Edo artistic culture were Sharaku Toshusai, Utamaro Kitagawa, Hokusai Katsushika and Hiroshige Utagawa.
The 170 works for this exhibition are on a generous loan from the ukiyoe collector Akira Nakau, who has also agreed to give a gallery talk about the works on display.

Gallery Talk
Date and time: April 24th (Thu) at 13:00 and 15:00 (about half an hour each)
Lecturer: Akira Nakau (director of the exhibition, collector and executive director of the International Ukiyoe Society)
*Admission is required to attend the talk.
*The above may be subject to unforeseen changes or cancellation.

Schedule

Apr 24 (Thu) 2008-May 12 (Mon) 2008