A Talk by Dr. Jeannie Kenmotsu, Assistant Curator of Japanese Art at Portland Art Museum

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Japanese woodblock prints were met with an enthusiastic audience in the United States in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. However, our current understanding of early print collecting has been filtered largely through the prism of specific private collectors based on the east coast. These donations laid the groundwork for the creation of museum collections in Boston, New York, and Chicago. This lecture by Dr. Jeannie Kenmotsu explores the lesser known contours of collecting Japanese art on the west coast. It reframes the story of early print collecting in the United States through an alternative but nonetheless foundational case study: an early donation of nearly 750 Edo-period (1603-1868) woodblock prints to the Portland Art Museum, Oregon. 

This talk is sponsored and organized by the USC Department of Art History and East Asian Studies Center.

Images: 
Ippitsusai Bunchō (active ca. 1760-1790), Actor Ichikawa Yaozō II as Umeōmaru, ca. 1768, color woodblock print on paper, The Mary Andrews Ladd Collection, Portland Art Museum, 32.160 [pictured on the left]

Katsukawa Shunshō (1726-1792), Actors Ichikawa Yaozō I, Segawa Kikuji, Nakamura Nakazō, Iwai Hanshiro IV, and Sawamura Sōjūrō, c. 1770s, color woodblock prints on paper (pentaptych), The Mary Andrews Ladd Collection, Portland Art Museum, 32.159a-e [pictured on the Upcoming Events page]