Hiroshige’s Foxes on View
- The Ota Memorial Museum is showing Hiroshige’s fox procession ukiyo-e from 'Famous Places of Edo' through May 10. (x.com) - Social posts about the exhibition drew nearly 980 likes from ukiyo-e and museum communities. (x.com) - The display connects traditional Japanese printmaking to current museum programming in Tokyo this spring. (x.com)
Tokyo’s Ota Memorial Museum of Art is showing Hiroshige’s fox print from *One Hundred Famous Views of Edo* in the exhibition’s first rotation through May 10. (ukiyoe-ota-muse.jp) The show, “Utagawa Hiroshige: One Hundred Famous Views of Edo — His Final Challenge,” opened April 15 and runs through June 14 in Shibuya, with all works changed between the first term, April 15 to May 10, and the second term, May 15 to June 14. The museum says it is displaying the full 120-print set for the first time in about eight years. (ukiyoe-ota-muse.jp) The fox image is the series’ famous New Year’s Eve scene at Oji, where folklore held that foxes gathered near Oji Inari Shrine before heading to worship. Museum and collection notes say farmers counted the foxfires to predict the coming rice harvest. (brooklynmuseum.org, metmuseum.org) Hiroshige made *One Hundred Famous Views of Edo* in the last years of his life, and the Ota Memorial Museum dates the project to the three years before his death at 62 in 1858. The museum says 118 designs were by Hiroshige himself, with one by the second Hiroshige and one print serving as the table of contents. (ukiyoe-ota-muse.jp) The series is known for turning city views into bold visual experiments. The Ota Memorial Museum says Hiroshige used close-up foreground objects, cropped views and high vantage points to push beyond earlier ukiyo-e landscape formulas. (ukiyoe-ota-muse.jp) The museum also frames the prints as records of a changing Edo, the city now called Tokyo. Its exhibition notes point to scenes that captured new suburban destinations and late-Edo upheaval, including land reshaped after the arrival of the Black Ships and the construction of coastal defenses. (ukiyoe-ota-muse.jp) For visitors planning a trip, the museum says admission is 1,200 yen for adults, 800 yen for university and high school students, and free for junior high school students and younger. It is open from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., with last admission at 5 p.m., and says no timed reservation is required. (ukiyoe-ota-muse.jp) A curator talk tied to the exhibition is scheduled for April 23 at 10:50 a.m., with additional talks on April 28, May 21 and May 29. The museum says each session lasts about 30 minutes and is limited to 50 people. (ukiyoe-ota-muse.jp) The foxes arrive in Hiroshige’s print under a winter night sky, but the museum’s deadline is simpler: the first-term rotation ends May 10, and the full exhibition closes June 14. (ukiyoe-ota-muse.jp, artic.edu)
