Exhibitions

Selected Prints 50 to 500

selected hundred views

Netsuke

100 Views of Edo

Ronin Gallery is pleased to present a very special summer exhibition of Hiroshige’s masterpiece series, One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. From majestic landscapes to lively street scenes, this woodblock print series not only illustrates the beauty of Edo during the four seasons but also the dynamic life of the people who lived there.  They are known universally for their daring and dramatic compositions that influenced the Impressionist and changed the course of Western art.  Monet was so entranced by the "Kameido Bridge" that he built a drum bridge in the garden of his home and depicited it in his famed painting. "The Water-lily Pond".  Toulouse Lautrec was fascinated with Hiroshige's daring diagonal compositions and inventive use of perspective.  Whistler painted a series entitiled "The Nocturnes" inspired by Hiroshige's "Kyobashi Bridge."  And van Gogh owned over 25 Hiroshige prints and literally copied two prints from this series "Plum Garden at Kameido" and "Sudden Shower at Ohashi Bridge."   The series, designed and published between 1856 to 1858,  was intended as 100 prints, but was so popular that Hiroshige coninued to design Edo prints until his death in 1858.   We are delighted to to be able to present these remarkable works from one of the most highly esteemed and collected series in ukiyo-e. 

Ancient Paths Revisited: Sekino

ANCIENT PATHS REVISITED:  Jun'ichiro Sekino (1914-1988) was one of the driving forces behind the Sosaku Hanga (creative print) movement that advocated self-drawn, self-carved, and self-printed works.  A recognized talent from early childhood, he studied and worked with both Munakata and Onchi.  In 1959 he started his masterwork series " The 53 Stations of the Tokaido" which would take him over a decade to complete, each year traveling the Tokaido sketching a few more stations. In 1975 after completing the entire series the government awarded him for his outstanding achievement in "using every possible technique in woodblock printing"  Sekino followed this success with other series that illustrated other famous old routes. His prints are prized for the diversity in technique and subject, featuring everything from realism to abstraction all in his own distintive vibrantly expressive style.  His works are in museums around the world, such as the MOMA, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the Bibliotheque Nationale. Ronin Gallery is pleased to present this exceptional exhibtion of woodblock prints by Sekino that are both expressive and evocative