Lasting Impressions: Kawase Hasui’s Imperial Doll Portfolio

The Barry Art Museum at Old Dominion University is proud to present Lasting Impressions: Kawase Hasui’s Imperial Doll Portfolio, which will be on view from August 20, 2027, to February 13, 2028. As the debut exhibition of our new changing doll gallery, this show will complement our main changing exhibition, Dolls and Diplomacy: The Japanese Friendship Dolls of 1927, while furthering the Barry Art Museum’s commitment to interpreting dolls as art. The centerpiece of the exhibition will be The Japanese Dolls: Goshi-Ningyo, an exquisite portfolio of woodblock prints by the twentieth-century Japanese printmaker Kawase Hasui, which will be on loan from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. A selection of Japanese dolls from Alan Scott Pate, the leading expert on ningyo outside of Japan, will enrich the exhibition by showing actual examples of the types of dolls depicted in the prints.

Kawase Hasui (1883-1957) was a leading figure of the shin hanga, or “new print” movement in Japan during the early to mid-twentieth century. Developed in response to Japan’s modernization and an interest among publishers and artists in reviving traditional Japanese printmaking, shin hanga prints combine the craftsmanship and subject matter of traditional Japanese art with Western techniques such as atmospheric perspective. Hasui designed more than six hundred woodblock prints during his career, focusing on Japanese landscapes. Printed in 1935 and consisting of twenty-four different prints, the Goshi-Ningyo portfolio and its focus on dolls is an unusual entry within Hasui’s oeuvre, but each impression displays his attention to detail and dedication to the craft of printmaking.

All artworks by Kawase Hasui (Japanese, 1883-1957); 1935; woodblock print, ink and color on paper; on loan from Virginia Museum of Fine Arts