Bookcase Tour Tuesday - Hokusai

One of my friends works for the Cultural Properties Department of Sumida-ku, in Tokyo. She has been indirectly involved in the ward's plans to build a Hokusai Museum. The ward was given an impressive collection of woodblock prints by the famous artist, collected and donated by an American art historian, Peter Morse (great-grandnephew of Edward Sylvester Morse, a zoologist who first taught that field in Japan and also discovered the first shell mounds thereby starting the study of archeology as well; also half of the focus of my first MA thesis)

Anyways...

When he donated the collection to Sumida-ku, Morse stipulated that it should be put on display in a purpose-built museum. While that museum doesn't exist yet (although archaeological surveys are currently being carried out on the land where it is to be built) a catalogue of the heart of its collection has been published in limited circulation. I was lucky to be given a copy of this large hardcover book for free!



The collection is lacking in Hokusai's more widely known prints but it is very impressive and extensive, and contains some beautiful prints of people and everyday situations, of landscapes, and... of ghost stories! - I'm looking forward to visiting the finished museum!