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<i>The Heian Poet Yasumasa Playing the Flute by Moonlight, Subduing the Bandit Yasusuke with His Music</i> (detail), 1883, by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (Japanese, 1839–92), 1989-47-332a--c

The Heian Poet Yasumasa Playing the Flute by Moonlight, Subduing the Bandit Yasusuke with His Music (detail), 1883, by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (Japanese, 1839–92), 1989-47-332a--c

Exhibition

Yoshitoshi: Spirit and Spectacle

April 16–August 18, 2019

Discover the brilliant colors and spirited lines of Yoshitoshi, the last great master of the traditional Japanese woodblock print. Ever inventive in his art, he responded to Japan’s rapid modernization of the late 1800s with greater expressiveness than seen before. His vivid, dynamic imagery served as inspiration for modern-day manga and anime.

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi came of age as an artist as Japan opened to the West after two hundred years of isolation. Navigating both cultural traditions and the upheavals of the modern world, he tackled a wide range of themes: the heroism of samurai warriors, poetic images of figures in nature, female beauty, historic accounts, ghost stories, and the horrors of the battlefield.

This exhibition showcases some seventy works from the museum’s extraordinary collection of Yoshitoshi prints, the largest repository of his work outside Japan.


Main Building

Sponsors

This exhibition has been made possible by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation and the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Exhibition Fund.

Curators

Shelley Langdale, The Park Family Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings

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