The Toledo Museum of Art presents Ebb & Flow an exhibition on view Oct. 11, 2013 through Jan. 5, 2014.
When Elizabeth Keith arrived in Japan in 1915, the Scotswoman intended the trip to be a short visit to her sister, who had married a publisher working in Tokyo.
Instead, the 28-year-old remained in the country for nine years. Enamored with Japan’s culture, she was inspired to turn her budding artistic endeavors into a full-fledged career. Her portraits of Asian life earned her a following—one was even exhibited at the Royal Academy in London—and she began a fruitful collaboration with prominent printmaker Watanabe Shōzaburō, creating traditional Japanese woodblock prints. Though she eventually returned to London, the East left an indelible impact on the artist.
Today, a Keith print is one of more than 100 works on paper on view in Ebb & Flow: Cross-Cultural Prints, a new Toledo Museum of Art exhibition that explores the global influence of Japanese printmaking since 1900.
The works in Ebb & Flow, from the TMA collection and on loan from private collections, complement the Museum’s major fall exhibition Fresh Impressions: Early Modern Japanese Prints, which focuses on the rise of the shin hanga (“new prints”) movement among Japanese artists influenced by European Impressionism. Ebb & Flow also delves into shin hanga, but goes further in exhibiting works from the sōsaku hanga (“creative prints”) and kindai hanga (“modern contemporary prints”) movements.
For general information, visitors can call 419-255-8000 or 800-644-6862, or visit toledomuseum.org