About This Collection

The Prints and Photographs Division houses more than 2,500 Japanese woodblock prints and drawings, dating from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries, by such artists as Hiroshige, Kuniyoshi, Sadahide, and Yoshiiku. Subjects include actors, women, landscapes, scenes from Japanese literature and daily life, and Western foreigners. Many schools and traditions are represented, but primary strengths include the Japanese art forms known as Ukiyo-e, translated as "pictures of the floating (or sorrowful) world"; and Yokohama-e, literally "pictures of Yokohama."

About seventy percent of the prints in the collection are cataloged online, and records are being added. (As yet uncataloged holdings are available under the Division's Access to Unprocessed Materials policy.)