DRESDEN.- In the exhibition ‘Japan on Paper in Dresden: Utamaro, Hokusai, Hiroshige, and the Graphic Arts of Modernism’, the Kupferstich-Kabinett (Museum of Prints, Drawings and Photographs) of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (Dresden State Art Collections, SKD) is showcasing its outstanding and hitherto largely unknown collection of Japanese art. Comprising more than 10,000 items ranging in date from the seventeenth century to the present day, this collection is one of the oldest and most extensive of its kind in Europe. A selection of 160 exhibits are on show – including works by famous woodblock print artists such as Kitagawa Utamaro, Katsushika Hokusai, and Utagawa Hiroshige, as well as some that are on display for the first time.
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Everyday life and mythology, elegance and wit, fantasy and true-to-life observation of nature – Japanese woodblock prints encompass all facets of life. Utamaro used delicate lines to produce beautiful female figures, Hokusai captured everyday scenes with a keen eye, and Hiroshige created landscapes employing innovative colour compositions and perspectives.
At the start of the exhibition, visitors are introduced to the technique of woodblock printing. Each work is the result of a collaborative creative process: artists, woodcarvers, printers, and publishers worked together to produce the woodblock prints, which, depending on the print run and the client, could be either valuable collector’s items or affordable works of art for the wider public. The individual images and books of woodblock prints were therefore not reserved solely for exclusive circles but also became an important part of middle-class leisure culture.
The remaining sections of the exhibition are devoted to the central themes of Japanese woodblock printing: depictions of beautiful women, with outstanding works by Harunobu and Utamaro, followed by scenes and portraits of actors from the Kabuki theatre. These are complemented by illustrations for historical novels, heroic sagas, and ghost stories, as well as legends of saints and landscape depictions by Hokusai and Hiroshige.
The Kupferstich-Kabinett has been collecting Japanese art on paper for almost 300 years. In collaboration with partners from Japan and Switzerland, this extensive collection has been researched, restored, and digitised in recent years. Professor Hans Bjarne Thomsen from Zurich, an internationally renowned expert, was brought on board to work on the Japanese collection.
The second part of the exhibition focuses on the significance of the Dresden collection as a catalyst for European modernism and for art and design education in Dresden around 1900. The Japanese works are juxtaposed with those of international artists, including James McNeill Whistler, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Edvard Munch, Emil Orlik, and Mary Cassatt. They all drew inspiration from Japanese art, experimenting with graphic techniques, discovering the expressive power of minimalism, and exploring radical approaches to pictorial composition. This dialogue had a lasting impact on modern art and continues to influence it to this day.
The exhibition design, devised by the artist Ines Beyer, incorporates and reflects the origins and atmosphere of the works on display. Traditional Japanese theatre curtains, pictures set in wooden pillars, and a view onto an implied open terrace, create atmospheric spaces that invite immersion into the visual worlds of Japanese colour woodblock prints.
The exhibition is complemented by a wide-ranging educational and outreach programme.
The exhibition catalogue, edited by the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Petra Kuhlmann-Hodick and Hans Bjarne Thomsen, will be published by Hirmer Verlag at the end of July 2026. 320 pages, museum price € 29.90, bookshop price € 40, ISBN: 978-3-7774-4727-8.
