Exhibition: Japan on Paper in Dresden. Utamaro, Hokusai, Hiroshige and the Graphic Arts of Modernism2026.7.12 {en}
June 26-September 20, 2026
A major exhibition started last week, entitled Japan on Paper in Dresden. Utamaro, Hokusai, Hiroshige and the Graphic Arts of Modernism that focuses on the Japanese woodblock print collection of the Kupferstich-Kabinett in Dresden, Germany.
https://kupferstich-kabinett.skd.museum/en/
This museum houses the oldest continually collected Japanese print collection in the western world; started under Augustus the Strong (who also collected the remarkable Chinese and Japanese porcelain collection in the same city), it commenced with the purchase in 1728 of woodblock printed maps from the collection of Cornelius Wissen at an auction in Amsterdam.
The collection is also one of the largest in Europe with over 11,000 Japanese prints. Although it was well known around 1900, it has not been shown – with one exception – to the public for well over a century, due to a combination of factors, including the removal of the entire collection to Russia after the Second World War, its relatively inaccessible location in the DDR, and so forth.
The single exception was the exhibition in the New York Japan Society in 1995 where 68 prints were shown from the collection under the curation of Rose Hempel. It should also be mentioned that Muneshige Narasaki visited the collection in 1982 and later included the museum in his monumental book series on Western collections.
Among the previously never shown objects is a book with 268 illustrations of animals, insects, and fantastical creatures, that was commissioned by Andreas Cleyer in Dejima from local Nagasaki artists in the 1680s. Also shown are rare topics such as the Toyama medicine prints, chirimen-prints, and ebangire.
Woldemar von Seidlitz, the author of the first monograph on Japanese prints in the German language, curated and enlarged the collection around 1900 and, from a network of contemporary European artists, created a superb collection of European works with receptions of Japanese art. A generous selection of these prints are shown including works by Toulouse -Lautrec, Mary Cossat, Emil Orlik, and others.
The exhibition will run until September 20, 2026. Negotiations are presently undergoing with a major Japanese museum and, for those who miss the Dresden exhibit, there will likely be a chance of seeing the exhibit in Tokyo in 2028, during the 300th anniversary of the collection.
An exhibition catalog with numerous essays will be published later this month, edited by Petra Kuhlmann-Hoddick and Hana Bjarne Thomsen, who are also the curators of the exhibition. Japanese collaboration partners include the Prof Ryo Akama at the Ritsumeikan University and Dr. Masaki Utsunomiya at the Shubi conservation studios. In addition to funding from German foundations, the project also received generous support from the Ishibashi Foundation and the Japan Foundation.
Further information at https://kupferstich-kabinett.skd.museum/en/.
Source: Exhibition: Japan on Paper in Dresden. Utamaro, Hokusai, Hiroshige and the Graphic Arts of Modernism. June 26-September 20, 2026, H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online „CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.“
