The Floating World of
Ukiyo-e February 28–May 7, 2012 Ryerson and Burnham Libraries http://www.artic.edu/aic/
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his exhibition showcases the Museum’s spectacular holdings of Japanese prints, books, and drawings from the 17th to the 19th centuries. These works are complemented by related works from the museum’s collections created by Japanese and Westerns artists into the 20th century.
Museum Hours
Monday–Wednesday, 10:30–5:00 Thursday, 10:30–8:00 Friday–Sunday, 10:30–5:00
Admission
Adults: $18 Children, Students, and Seniors (65 and up): $12 Children under 14: Free Members: Free
This exhibition, catalog, and programming were made possible by the generous support of Ford Conservation of the works in this exhibition was made possible through a grant from The United States-Japan Foundation.
The Art Institute of Chicago, 111 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, 60603-6404
Shadows, Dreams, & Substance
The Floating World of Ukiyo-e: Shadows, Dreams, and Substance showcases the museum’s spectacular holdings of Japanese “Ukiyo-e” (translated as pictures of the floating, or sorrowful, world) and is the first public viewing of this important and previously unseen collection. Featured are selected Ukiyo-e prints, books, and drawings from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries and other related works from the Library’s collections created by Japanese and Western artists into the twentieth century. The museum owes its extensive holdings of Ukiyo-e prints and printed books to a host of different collectors, including Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and President William Howard Taft. However, the most
“The artist Torii Kiyonaga has been described as the preeminent leader in…the golden age of ukiyo-e prints. He understood the human body much more thoroughly than other ukiyo-e artists, and by beautifying it he created a healthy and noble type of his own.”
-Chie Hirano
extensive collection of Ukiyo-e at the Library was assembled by Crosby Stuart Noyes (18251908), an owner and editor-in-chief of the former Washington Evening Star. In giving the collection to the Library in 1905, Mr. Noyes expressed the hope that the collection would be “an illustration of the extraordinary variety in Japanese art and an instructive and timely insight into their history and culture.” In presenting this exhibition, the offers its visitors The Art Institute of Chicago the opportunity to see the beauty and the meaning that motivated Crosby Stuart Noyes and others to collect these materials.
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