[Corfu] Exhibition of Japanese ukiyo-e prints

The Corfu Museum of Asian Art, Greece, is pleased to organize the temporary exhibition entitled ‘Ghosts and Spirits. The Supernatural in Japanese ukiyo-e prints’, which will run from the 1st of October 2013 until the 28th of February 2014. Curator of the exhibition is Despina Zernioti, Director of the Corfu Museum of Asian Art.

The exhibition includes the five rare Japanese prints from the series ‘Hyaku monogatari’ - One hundred Ghost stories – designed in 1831-32 by the famous Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). The woodblock prints belong to the collector Gregory Manos, the founder of the Corfu Museum of Asian Art. They are all based on traditional Japanese supernatural tales or inspired by uncanny moments in Kabuki plays. They are excellent examples of Japanese ukiyo-e art that influenced European art and the art of comics.

The exhibition also includes a small tribute to Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904), international outstanding author of the exotic and occult. He was born on the Ionian Island of Lefkada by a Greek mother and an Irish father. Hearn had great interest in traditional Japanese literature and folklores and he wrote dispatches about Japanese life, as well as ghost stories based on local folktales. He wrote a dozen books which interpreted Japan and its civilization to Western readers.

View all Asia-Europe Museum Network members in Greece and Japan