The Hara Yasusaburo Collection: HIROSHIGE VIVID

Suntory Museum of Art
29 April – 12 June 2016

 
The exhibition showcases absolutely fabulous pieces of ukiyo-e, depicting popular and picturesque places of Edo (former Tokyo) and Japan, selected from the collection of Yasusaburo Hara (1884 – 1982, the former chairman of Nippon Kayaku Ltd.).

The featured works include “One Hundred Famous Views of Edo” and “Famous Views of the Sixty-odd Provinces” (68 countries of “Goki-shichidō” or an ancient administrative unit literally meaning “five provinces and seven circuits”) – representative works of Hiroshige Utagawa (1797-1858) produced in his late period.

For the first time ever, complete sets of these works will be displayed together at one time. Moreover, the exhibited works are of “sho-zuri” or first print sets, and that, of the earliest ones; they are of superior quality and in vivid colours, compared to “ato-zuri” or later prints.

To make the exhibition even more interesting, the present-day sites appearing in the two sets of Hiroshige’s works were photographed and displayed side by side with the ukiyo-e so that the visitors may compare the past and present. Last but not least, ukiyo-e pieces of picturesque places produced by Hokusai Katsushika (1760-1849) and Kuniyoshi Utagawa (1797 – 1861) will also be displayed.