Hiroshige Fan Prints at the V & A
Faulkner

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Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858), a leading artist of the popular ukiyo-e school, created many of the most familiar images of pre-modern Japan. Considerably more rare are his designs for fan prints or uchiwa-e, and the remarkable group in the V&A, published here in their entirety for the first time,is the largest known holding of its kind in the world. Assembled between 1886 and 1919, the collection offers fascinating insights into a relatively uncharted but compelling dimension of Hiroshige's achievement. A native of Edo, the large and bustling urban centre that subsequently became the city of Tokyo, Hiroshige lived at a time when travel was becoming an increasingly important partof Japanese life. He was to become particularly famous for his landscape prints, where he skilfully catered for the growing demand for creative representations of places popular among the travelling public. Another of Hiroshige's strengthswas bird and flower studies, and he also created many fine designs dealing with literary and historical themes. Rich in colour and full of poetry, Hiroshige's works are ascaptivating today as when they were first created in mid-nineteenth-century Japan. This volume of astonishingly vivid and varied fan prints will be of considerable interest to collectors, students and anyone with a love of Japanese art.