Enjoying through all ages and countries
Sumio Kawakami (1895-1972), born in Yokohama and raised in Tokyo, became a high school teacher in Utsunomiya and began making woodblock prints in 1921 when he was 26 years old. He stayed in Utsunomiya until his death 50 years later, except for three years during the war. He created a unique artistic world in woodblock prints with ideas based on daily life in the city, an interest in the late Edo and early Meiji period, and nostalgia for his childhood. This exhibition presents more than 300 of Kawakami’s prints from the collection of the Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, divided into two exhibition periods.