In 1906, seventeen years after her graduation from Oberlin College, Mary A. Ainsworth embarked on a sea voyage that would forever change her life. Traveling on her own in Japan, she encountered the “Floating World” of woodblock prints of the Edo period (1603–1868) and began to collect these fascinating images. The Floating World, or ukiyo, was the term for an underground realm of popular culture and entertainment peopled with geishas, kabuki actors, and sumo wrestlers, and supported by a rising class of merchants and artisans who lived in Japan’s urban areas. This group had gained in wealth—but not political status—as the economy became more diversified in the 18th century. “Pictures of the Floating World,” ukiyo-e, most often referred to woodblock prints of the people and places of that realm. Unusual for a woman in her day, by the early 1930s Ainsworth had gathered one of the most significant collections of Japanese prints found anywhere in America, and she bequeathed it to the AMAM in 1950. A Life in Prints presents a historical overview of ukiyo-e using highlights of this extraordinary collection along with rare books and other materials.

Represented are such artists as Suzuki Harunobu, the first major producer of full-color woodblock prints; Kitagawa Utamaro, the foremost master of “beauty pictures,” known as bijinga; and Torii Kiyonaga, famous for prints of women who appear tall and graceful even when doing household chores. After an 1842 government crackdown on subjects deemed inappropriate, Katsushika Hokusai and others turned to “bird and flower” prints, idyllic scenes of the countryside, and scenes of virtuous heroes. A strength of the collection from this time is Utagawa Hiroshige’s series The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō, of which the museum has an entire set. The exhibition concludes with prints from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when Japan rapidly industrialized following centuries of isolation.

A Life in Prints was organized by Kevin Greenwood, the Joan L. Danforth Assistant Curator of Asian Art.