In Munich, from March to July 2025, nearly 70,000 visitors to the exhibition “Colors of Japan – Woodblock Prints from the Collection of the Bavarian State Library” embarked on a visually rich journey through three centuries of Japanese printmaking. With this exhibition, the library showcased its collection of Japanese color woodblock prints for the first time and received an overwhelmingly positive response.
The collection offers a representative cross-section of woodblock prints known as ukiyo-e (‘pictures of the floating world’), and includes outstanding examples of this form of art, most notably an excellent print of Hokusai’s Great Wave. Some stylistic elements of ukiyo-e continue to resonate in contemporary Japanese popular culture, particularly in manga and anime, which were therefore also briefly addressed within the exhibition. By combining original works with large-scale reproductions and innovative museum-educational formats the exhibition addressed both specialist and general audiences and generated strong resonance across a broad public.
The lecture aims, first, to offer a retrospective analysis of the exhibition and, second, to examine the factors underlying its success on the basis of several thousand questionnaires. This success seems to be attributable, among other things, to the dynamic interplay between reception and artistic tradition between Europe and Japan, a thematic thread throughout the exhibition that appears to have opened new perspectives for interpretation. The exhibition’s underlying hypothesis likewise seems confirmed: Japanese color woodblock prints continue to exert a sustained global fascination through their distinctive aesthetics, unique visual language, and extraordinary use of color.

Authors:
Thomas Tabery, Bavarian State Library, Munich, Germany

About the Presenter(s)
Dr. Thomas Tabery currently holds the position of Head of the Oriental and Asian Department at the Bavarian State Library, Munich.

See this presentation on the full schedule – Sunday Schedule

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