Japanese Woodblock Prints

Gallagher & Turner maintain a constantly changing collection of 19th and 20th Century woodblock prints, from the printmakers of the Edo, Meiji and Shin-Hanga eras of Japanese art.

These highly collectable, and beautiful prints vary in price from £40 to £6,000 or more. Often more than a century old they represent a highly populist art, described as Ukiyo-e, or 'pictures of the floating world'. The floating world is an expression meaning the fleeting, ephemeral pleasures of life (mostly for Japanese men), the theatre, beautiful women, or courtesans, folklore stories and the beauty of flowers and plants.

Ukiyo-e printmaking dates from the 17th Century, with early prints being black and white; colour coming in as dies and pigments were more readily available, and prints were made by carving more than one block to producehighly complex designs. The prints were finely carved from hardwood with enormous skill, but were not perceived as fine art, being produced by the thousand as commercial art. Over the centuries many prints were destroyed and not respected for the skill they represent: in fact the French impressionist painters only discovered them because they were wrapped around crockery as packing. Their unique style came as a revelation and this quirk of fate helped to shape the future of modern European art. Some of these highly influential prints are now very rare and collectable and are traded around the world.

Woodblock print periods:
Edo (1603 - 1868) - ended by the opening of Japan to the West.
Meiji (1868 - 1912)
Shin-Hanga (20th Century) - Ukiyo-e rennaissance, combined with Western influences like Art Deco fashions and greater use of perspective.

Exhibitions at Gallagher & Turner:
Mixed Gallery Artists
5th January - 6th February 2016

Shunga: Japanese Woodblock Prints
10th February - 15th March 2017

Pictures of the Floating World: The Art of Japanese Woodblock Printmaking
6th March - 26th June 2020