The Actor's Image
The Japanese artist Katsukawa Shunsho gave his name to an entire school of artists who during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries designed a vast number of fine woodblock prints featuring the world of the Kabuki theater, especially its popular actors. In these prints strong and distinctive characterizations are coupled with complex and refined color-printing techniques, demonstrating not only the cultural importance of Kabuki theater but also the high quality of Japanese print making at this time. The Katsukawa school prints presented in this comprehensive volume are drawn largely from The Art Institute of Chicago's Buckingham Collection, named for the prominent collector Clarence E. Buckingham and his sister Kate. This is the third in a series of comprehensive catalogues of this remarkable collection, one of the finest of its kind in the United States. The first, The Clarence Buckingham Collection of Japanese Prints, Vol. I, The Primitives (1955), was written by Helen Gunsaulus. The second volume, subtitled Harunobu, Koryusai, Shigemasa, Their Followers and Contemporaries (1965), was written by Margaret Gentles. The Actor's Image, presented in a new format, is based on nearly twenty years of research by Osamu Ueda, Keeper of the Buckingham Print Collection at the Art Institute from 1971 to 1990. By studying illustrated theater playbills and programs, and diaries of Kabuki fans, Mr. Ueda identified the individual actors, their roles, and even the scenes depicted in the prints. Timothy T. Clark, Curator of Japanese Prints at the British Museum, London, has built upon this research, expanding it into a detailed discussion of 136 prints each illustrated in full color, from a total of 740 prints reproduced and catalogued in the book. Mr. Clark has also contributed an essay reconstructing from contemporary documents the creation and reception of a specific Kabuki production in the year 1784. A second essay, by Donald Jenkins, Curator of Asian Art at the Portland Art Museum, gives an overview of the Katsukawa school, chronicling the lives and particular styles of the individual artists. Also included are summary biographies of the print makers and the actors and a list of the actors' mon, or identifying crests. The 500-page book contains approximately 150 color plates and almost 1,000 black-and-white illustrations.
