Cute and Funny Ukiyo-e

Ukiyo-e prints were to Edo-period folks as magazines and comic strips are to us in modern times: a form of amusement and mass entertainment, depicting scenes from everyday life. This exhibition of ‘cute and funny’ ukiyo-e prints has been curated to evoke in us modern-day viewers the same feelings the Edo-ites folks would have felt when viewing Ukiyo-e art at the time: a sense of humour and light-heartedness. The prints show strange creatures, slapstick comedy, anthropomorphised animals interacting with humans, caricatures of characters from classical stories, and women donning kimonos decorated with outlandish motifs.