Shin hanga

With a unique selection of over 200 Japanese colour woodblock prints from the first half of the 20th century, the exhibition shows the development of shin hanga (‘new prints’). The subjects range from female beauties and great actors of the kabuki theatre to atmospheric landscapes and impressive depictions of birds to scenes from modern urban life.

Works by all the major shin hanga artists will be represented, depictions of "beautiful women" by the artists Hashiguchi Goyō, Torii Kotondo and Itō Shinsui or the impressive landscapes by the famous Kawase Hasui. It is not so much in their subject matter as through their visual language that shin hanga prints set themselves apart from their traditional precursors.

Where the classically depicted women were stylized and idealized, their more recent counter parts were based on real models and are charged with emotion. The shin hanga landscapes, meanwhile, are more impressionistic than figurative, using a range of colour nuances to achieve exceptionally atmospheric results. An astonishing degree of technical perfection is another feature of these prints.

The woodcuts selected for the exhibition come from two major Dutch private collections and from the family collection of Watanabe Shōzaburō, the most important publisher of Japanese prints of the 20th century. The selection is enriched by a newly acquired spectacular pair of folding screens by the painter and shin hanga artist Yoshida Hiroshi (1876–1950).

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