Kuniyoshi
From the Arthur R. Miller Collection
Royal Academy, until 7 June
Sponsored by Canon
The Royal Academy is making something of a reputation for staging exhibitions of Japanese printmakers: the current Kuniyoshi show follows on neatly from Hokusai (1991–2) and Hiroshige (1997) and adds considerably to our understanding of the genre. There hasn’t been a major Kuniyoshi show in England for nearly 50 years, and he is certainly one of the less well-known of the great Japanese print artists. Master of an unexpected versatility and variety of subject, Kuniyoshi was also possessed of an originality that stands out even among such talented contemporaries.
The son of a textile dyer and largely self-taught, Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797–1861) was one of the last great artists of the Edo period in Japan, when the country was governed in the name of the emperor by a censorious military dictatorship.
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