At the beginning of the 20th century, print connoisseur and entrepreneur Watanabe Shozaburo found that few craftsmen remained who could master the high quality of printmaking that characterized the previous century. Convinced that print collectors in Japan and abroad would embrace new prints made in the old way, he established himself as a publisher and organized artists, block cutters and printers to create color woodcuts.
Andrew Stevens, recently retired as Distinguished Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photography from Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, WI, will trace Watanabe's success and talk about some of the most famous and prolific of the artists who designed the thousands of prints he published.

Sponsored by Friendship Village