September 27, 2006
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417
AMHERST, Mass.—Samuel C. Morse, professor of fine arts and Asian languages and civilizations at Amherst College, will give a gallery talk titled “Gifts from the Ebb Tide: Utamaro and the Print Culture of Edo” at 1 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 13, in the Fairchild Gallery at the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College. Morse is a guest curator of the current exhibition at the Mead, “Gifts from the Ebb Tide and the World of Kitagawa Utamaro,” from Sept. 14 through Dec. 10. The other guest curator, Anne Nishimura Morse, curator of Japanese art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, will give a gallery talk titled “Gifts from the Ebb Tide and the World of Kitagawa Utamaro” at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 29, in the Fairchild Gallery. All events are free and open to the public.
The exhibition examines the various facets of the print culture of the 18th century presented by The Gifts from the Ebb Tide: the relationship of the artist Utamaro with the publisher Tsutaya Jusaburo, the integration of kyoka poems and imagery in ukiyo-e, images of courtesans engaged in activities popular in and around the city of Edo and the pastimes of the courtesans of the Green Houses. The exhibition features Utamaro’s The Gifts from the Ebb Tide and other examples of Utamaro’s prints from the collection of the Mead Art Museum, as well as loans from the Wadsworth Athenaeum, the Worcester Art Museum and private collections. Support is provided by the David Mesker (Class of 1953) Fund and the Hall and Kate Peterson Fund.
The Mead Art Museum is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Thursday evenings until 9 p.m. Additional information is available on the museum’s Website, or by calling the museum at 413/542-2335. Admission and all events are free and open to the public.
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