Kuniyoshi: Design and Entertainment in Japanese Woodcuts

On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the friendship between Austria and Japan, MAK is showing an exhibition on Japanese Ukiyoe designer Kuniyoshi and his artistic and cultural environment. Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798 - 1861) is a key figure in the history of the color woodcut at the end of the Edo period. Together with the important publishers of his time and other artists of the Utagawa School, he created artistically and technically groundbreaking prints that enjoyed great popularity among the general public.

The MAK houses color woodcuts by Kuniyoshi and his contemporaries, whose profile and composition make them unique in the world. The MAK collection of Japanese color woodcuts from the late Edo period was largely created around the year 1900. Exhibition and publication place his work in eight chapters at the center of the Utagawa School: Innovations in content and technology allow his oeuvre to mirror the great political and social changes in Japan in the 19th century.