KABUKI LEGENDS
PAST EXHIBITION
![Part of our World In Colour Season Part of our World In Colour Season](https://ashmolean.web.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/styles/mt_image_small/public/ashmolean/images/media/icon-2023-world-in-colour-season.png?itok=3H4hsii-)
1 Apr 2023 – 11 Feb 2024
Gallery 29
Admission is FREE
Japanese artist Takahashi Hiromitsu creates dynamic, colourful prints showing exciting moments in kabuki, Japan’s traditional dance-drama.
Hiromitsu’s striking designs are not portraits of actual actors, but visualisations of famous kabuki roles.
In kabuki, performers wearing elaborate costumes and make-up use stylised movement and song to enact melodramatic stories about love, loyalty and the clash between duty and emotion.
![Figure chasing a bat with a spear against a blue sky - kabuki stencil print - by Japanese artist Takahashi Hiromitsu, 1998 Figure chasing a bat with a spear against a blue sky - kabuki stencil print - by Japanese artist Takahashi Hiromitsu, 1998](https://ashmolean.web.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/styles/mt_image_medium/public/ashmolean/images/media/kabuki-man-chasing-bat-spear-1284.jpg?itok=vEULRijH)
![Figure chasing a bat with the moon and blue sky - kabuki stencil print - by Japanese artist Takahashi Hiromitsu, 1998 Figure chasing a bat with the moon and blue sky - kabuki stencil print - by Japanese artist Takahashi Hiromitsu, 1998](https://ashmolean.web.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/styles/mt_image_medium/public/ashmolean/images/media/kabuki-man-chasing-bat-moon-1284.jpg?itok=FPyZ_jUb)
Gojōbashi Benkei and Gojōbashi Ushiwaka by Takahashi Hiromitsu, 1998
The works recall Japan’s traditional ukiyo-e woodblock actor prints, but are made using a different technique – kappazuri, or stencil printing, originally used for dyeing kimono. This process is complex and labour-intensive and Hiromitsu is one of very few artists working in this way today.
This exhibition showcases a selection of these unusual prints from the Ashmolean's own extensive collection of Hiromitsu's work, generously presented by Philip Harris.
Images in page header above and below all © Hiromitsu Takahashi / The Tolman Collection
WATCH THE KABUKI LEGENDS VIDEO
Curator Clare Pollard introduces Hiromitsu's exhibition and printmaking techniques
https://www.youtube.com/embed/_j5T2IT9guE?rel=0&cc_load_policy=1