Japonisme and America

Explore our most recent permanent collection focus, Japonisme and America. Japonisme, the craze for Japanese art and culture, began in the West in the 1850s and 1860s when Japan began exporting woodblock prints, screens, fans, textiles, ceramics and furniture into Europe and the United States. This exhibition explores the impact of this vogue on 19th-century American artists, as well as its legacy for 20th-century Japanese and Japanese-American artists. On the eve of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, Japonisme and America illustrates not only the sustained American interest in Japanese aesthetics, from woodblock prints to anime, but also the complex social and economic relationships between these two countries.