Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Ashmolean − Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Yakusha-e: Kabuki Prints, a Continuing Tradition

(from 29th Nov 2011 until 4th Mar 2012)

Discover the brightly coloured woodblock prints of actors from Japanese popular theatre.

Detail of The actor Nakamura Shikan IV as the fisherman Fukashichi, Tōkyō, 1869 (Museum No: EA1971.2
Reference URL

Actions

Send e-mail

Contact us about this object

Send e-mail

Send to a friend

Onoe Baikō VII as the wet nurse Masaoka

  • Description

    Like earlier print designers, Kōkei depicts moments from actual performances, and his prints were primarily sold at the Kabukiza Theatre in Tokyo until he stopped making them in 2000.

    The actor Onoe Baikō VII (1915-1995) was one of Japan’s leading postwar onnagata (female impersonator), who also specialized in the roles of handsome young lovers. He was designated a Living National Treasure in 1968. Kōkei’s portrait, with its exaggerated depiction of the actor’s expression and hand gesture, captures the climactic moment of a kabuki play known as a ‘mie’.

  • Details

    Series
    Bust Portraits VIII
    Associated place
    Asia Japan (place of creation)
    Date
    1990
    Artist/maker
    Tsuruya Kōkei (born 1946) (designer)
    Associated people
    Onoe Baikō VII (1915 - 1995) (subject)
    Material and technique
    woodblock on ganpi tori no ko paper
    Dimensions
    print 39 x 25 cm (height x width)
    Material index
    Technique index
    Object type index
    No. of items
    1
    Credit line
    Presented by Philip Harris, 2010.
    Accession no.
    EA2010.42

Past Exhibition

see (1)

Location

    • currently in research collection

Objects are sometimes moved to a different location. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis. Contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular object on display, or would like to arrange an appointment to see an object in our reserve collections.

 

Notice

Objects from past exhibitions may have now returned to our stores or a lender. Click into an individual object record to confirm whether or not an object is currently on display. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis, so please contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular Eastern Art object.

© 2013 University of Oxford - Ashmolean Museum