Fresh Impressions: Early Modern Japanese Prints

In 1930 the Toledo Museum of Art organized a landmark exhibition of “modern Japanese prints.” Featuring the work of ten artists, including Hashiguchi Goyō, Kawase Hasui, and Hiroshi Yoshida, it has stood as a watershed in the success of the shin hanga (“new prints”) movement. The exhibition's small, limited-edition catalogue (now long since out of print), with its invaluable descriptions and thumbnail black-and-white images, has likewise been considered a shin hanga “bible” for scholars and collectors.

Fresh Impressions: Early Modern Japanese Prints reproduces and re-examines all 343 prints from the original 1930 exhibition catalogue. It features retranslated and updated information about each print and essays by four distinguished authors who explore the context and importance of the 1930 Toledo exhibition, the key players who brought it about, and shin hanga’s continuing legacy.