Mid-Century to Manga celebrates the historical and continued local interest in Japanese and Japanese American printmaking and illustration. The exhibition traces the story of the modern sōsaku-hanga (or “creative prints”) movement and other creative collectibles across the past century–from Japan to the United States and beyond.

The exhibition will feature 75 prints on paper, over two dozen of which have never been on display at the Michener Art Museum before (such as Kiyoshi Saitō’s Winter in Aizu series).

Highlighting a prominent local story, the central feature of the exhibition is the display of three original copies of James Michener’s 1962 book The Modern Japanese Print: An Appreciation. This very large folio (each is approximately two-feet tall and three-feet wide when opened) contains signed original woodblock prints by modern Japanese printmakers Hiratsuka Un’Ichi, Maekawa Sempan, Mori Yoshitoshi, Watanabe Sadao, Kinoshita Tomio, Shima Tamami, Azechi Umetaro, Iwami Reika, Yoshida Masaji, and Maki Haku.

For this project, the Michener Art Museum is engaging regional partners at the University of Pennsylvania to provide specific content-area expertise, with curation by the History of Art Department Chair, Julie Nelson Davis​, and support from curatorial fellows Marina De Melo Do Nascimento​, Maria Puzyreva​, and Nicholas M Purgett​.

Mid-Century to Manga: The Modern Japanese Print in America has been generously supported by the Bucks County Tourism Grant Program and the Michener Art Museum’s 35^th Anniversary Initiative.