Japanese Prints from the Arizona State University Art Museum
The ASU Art Museum serves a diverse community of artists and audiences through innovative programming that is interdisciplinary, educational and relevant to life today. The Jules Heller Print Study Room at the ASU Art Museum provides a secure environment for care and storage for more than 6000 prints in the collection while also being an accessible resource for students and public. An average of 600 students visit the Jules Heller Print Study Room during the academic year. To further assist the educational experience, on display are examples of tools used to create the prints and the Curator of Prints is available to explain the tools and print making processes to students, professors and scholars. Classes and individual students have participated in the origination and research of exhibitions from our Japanese print holdings: Lasting Impressions: Japanese Prints from the ASU Art Museum (Aug. 28 – Nov. 27, 2010); Legends and Myths in Japanese Kabuki Prints (Feb. 11 – Sept. 29, 2012); and, Echoes of Japan: Prints by Western Women (Jan. 3 – May 17, 2014). By digitizing the Japanese print collection; and placing it in the Library's digital repository will expand and support our interdisciplinary and educational focus in Japanese art, making it available to a much broader audience than just the museum visitor. This is a collaboration between ASU Libraries, the ASU Art Museum, and ASU Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts.
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- All Subjects: katana
This print shows the actors Sasaki Gennosuke 佐々木源之助 (left) and Yodo Yosaemon 淀与三右衛門 (right) performing a fight scene in a kabuki play.
Triptych by Utagawa Kunisada II depicting a scene from the kabuki play Nise Murasaki Inaka Genji (The Imitation Murasaki and the Rustic Genji), a dramatization of a popular book by Ryūtei Tanehiko 柳亭 種彦 that satirizes the Tale of Genji.
This diptych shows the ghost of Asakura Tōgo 朝倉當吾 returning to haunt the man responsible for his death, the corrupt governor Orikoshi Tairyō 織越大領. A kappa (a traditional folk monster) tumbles comically at Orikoshi’s feet.
This diptych shows the kabuki actors, Iwai Hanshirō V 五代目 岩井半四郎 as Hanaregoma Chōkichi 放駒長吉 (left) and Nakamura Daikichi 中村大吉 as Nuregami Chōgorō 濡髪長五郎 (right) dueling amongst straw bales of rice.
This triptych shows a scene from the kabuki play Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura (Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees).
This ōban triptych depicts Minamoto Yoshitsune 源 義經 (center left) and his retainers after their victory over the troops of Minamoto no Yoshinaka at the battle of Hōjūjidono in 1184. The warrior monk Musashibō Benkei 武藏坊 辨慶 sits to the right of Yoshitsune. In the lower-right corner lie the decapitated heads of Nenoi Ōyata 根井 大弥太 and Gonrokurō 権六郎.