Toyohara Kunichika (1835-1900), The Actor Ichikawa Sadanji I as Akiyama Kii no kami, 1894, 359 X 712 mm. John H. Van Vleck Endowment Fund purchase. The Chazen Museum of Art

BROOKLYN, NY.-Utagawa: Masters of the Japanese Print, 1770–1900, on view at the Brooklyn Museum from March 21 through June 15, 2008, will present 95 Japanese woodblock prints by more than 15 artists, among them Utagawa Hiroshige, Utagawa Kuniyoshi, and Tsukioka Yoshitoshi. The exhibition is drawn from the holdings of the Chazen Museum of Art’s renowned Van Vleck collection and is augmented by 22 woodblock prints from the Brooklyn Museum’s Asian art collection.

The Utagawa School, founded by Utagawa Toyoharu, dominated the Japanese print market in the nineteenth century and is responsible for more than half of all surviving Ukiyo-e prints. These prolific artists created a thriving print publishing industry by mass-producing their prints for the general public. Created in a climate of strict censorship and fierce creative competition, the woodblock prints are both technically sophisticated and broadly appealing.

Ukiyo-e originated in Edo, present-day Tokyo, during the Shogunate era, when Japan was isolated from the rest of the world. Literally meaning “pictures of the floating world”, the Ukiyo-e genre closely examines the pleasures of Kabuki theatres, teahouses, and the lives of geishas and courtesans. Colorful, innovative, and sometimes defiant of government regulations, the Ukiyo-e prints were created for a popular audience and documented themes of leisure and entertainment: familiar landscapes, portraits of beautiful women, Kabuki actors, and erotica.

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