Tsutaju, innovative publisher of the Edo period, featured at Tokyo National Museum

The Tokyo National Museum in Tokyo’s Ueno Park is now running a special exhibition featuring books and ukiyo-e prints produced by Tsutaya Juzaburo (1750-97), who was an innovative publisher and a discoverer of artistic and literary talents during the pre-modern Edo period (17th-19th century). He is best known for unearthing prominent ukiyo-e artists such as Kitagawa Utamaro (1753?-1806) and Toshusai Sharaku (1763-1820).

Special Exhibition
Tsutaya Jūzaburō: Creative Visionary of Edo

Apr 22 (Sat) – Jun 15 (Sun), 2025

Tokyo National Museum
(Ueno Park, Tokyo)

*See outline below for details

The exhibition, entitled “Tsutaya Jūzaburō: Creative Visionary of Edo,” will showcase about 250 items associated with Tsutaju including kibyoshi (literally, “yellow cover”) booklets, share-bon (novels based on activities inside pleasure quarters) and ukiyo-e woodblock prints he published in his heyday. What might interest international visitors are the ukiyo-e prints of superb quality on display, including Utamaro’s “Three Famous Beauties,” and Sharaku’s yakusha-e portraits of popular kabuki actors.

The exhibition is held in collaboration with Berabō: Tsutajū Eiga no Yume Banashi (“Unbound”), a Sunday-night historical drama based on the life of Tsutaju now showing on NHK (Japan’s national broadcasters). The huge gate set at the entrance of the exhibition rooms and the Kosho-do publishing house and other structures on display in the final chapter are borrowed from drama settings to evoke the atmosphere of the time.

While the special exhibition is running on the second floor of the Heiseikan building, the museum is simultaneously running a thematic exhibition on the first floor, which focuses on shin-hanga, or “new prints” from the early 20th century. The “Shin-hanga: Japanese Woodblock Prints after Ukiyo-e” will introduce visitors to the creators of this genre such as Kawase Hasui (1883–1957) and Yoshida Hiroshi (1876–1950).

In Hyokeikan, a separate building close by on the museum premises, yet another ukiyo-e exhibition is now on. “Ukiyo-e In Play: Artists Re-Working the Traditions of Woodcut Prints” introduces visitors to modern-day artists, designers, and creators who were inspired by ukiyo-e’s traditional techniques and have created their own prints in their own fashion. Artists featured in this exhibition include Yayoi Kusama and Tadanori Yokoo.

(Photos by Kazuki Matsuura)