Sponsorship:

This exhibition, catalog, and programming were made possible by

the generous support of Ford

Conservation of the works in this exhibition was made possible through a grant from

The United States-Japan Foundation.

The Art Institute of Chicago

111 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois

60603-6404http://www.artic.edu/aic/February 28–May 7, 2012

Museum HoursMonday–Wednesday, 10:30–5:00

Thursday, 10:30–8:00 Friday–Sunday, 10:30–5:00

Admission Adults: $18

Children, Students, and Seniors (65 and up): $12

Children under 14: FreeMembers: Free

The Floating World of Ukiyo-e

Yolanda De La Torre

Shadows, Dreams, & Substance

The Floating World of Ukiyo-e: Shadows, Dreams, and Substanceshowcases the

museum’s spectacular holdings of Japanese “Ukiyo-e” (translated as pictures of the floating, or sorrowful, world) and is the first public viewing of this important

and previously unseen collection. Featured are selected Ukiyo-e prints, books, and drawings from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries and other related

works from the Library’s collections created by Japanese and Western artists

into the twentieth century.

This exhibition showcases the Museum’s spectacular holdings of Japanese prints, books, and drawings from the 17th to the 19th centuries. These works are

complemented by related works from the museum’s collections created by Japanese and

Westerns artists into the 20th century.

The museum owes its extensive holdings of Ukiyo-e prints and printed books to a host of different collectors, including Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and President William Howard Taft. However,

the most extensive collection of Ukiyo-e at the Library was assembled by Crosby Stuart Noyes (1825-1908), an owner and editor-in-chief of the former Washington Evening Star. In giving the collection to the Library in 1905, Mr. Noyes expressed the hope that the collection would be “an illustration of the extraordinary variety in Japanese art and an instructive and timely insight into

their history and culture.”In presenting this exhibition, the offers its visitors The Art Institute of Chicago

the opportunity to see the beauty and the meaning that motivated Crosby Stuart Noyes

and others to collect these materials.