Celebrating Asian Art

On The Vanguard: Meiji Period Woodblock Prints

Scholten is a private gallery specializing in Japanese woodblock prints and paintings located just steps from Central Park South. We offer ukiyo-e from the 18th to 20th centuries, including shin hanga, sosaku hanga, and Japanese-style woodblock prints produced by Western artists.

Scholten Japanese Art’s exhibition, On The Vanguard: Meiji Period Woodblock Prints, focuses on a dynamic period in the late 19th and early 20th century as Japan transformed from a feudal society based on samurai culture into a modern nation. The prints in this show explore how artists recorded and responded to the introduction of foreign elements, at times resisting the march toward modernity by embracing nostalgia. Ultimately, the artists who prevailed were those that were on the vanguard—leading the way—by balancing society’s intermittent longing for ‘Old Japan’ while adapting, and even embracing, a changing world.