Floating Worlds: Prints from Osaka & Kyoto

Explore the pleasure, fashion and cultural life that flourished in Japan’s Kamigata region during the Edo period (1603-1868). Created between c.1790 and c.1900, these traditional full colour woodblock prints, collectively known as Kamigata ukiyo-e or “pictures of the floating world”, capture the vibrant culture of Osaka and Kyoto through depictions of kabuki actors, samurai warriors, beauties, the supernatural and landscapes.

Renowned for their craftsmanship, elegance and wit, the prints offered an escape from everyday life for the lower classes (chōnin) including artists, crafts people and merchants who spent their days attending to business and family, and their evenings gathered in theatres, cultural salons and pleasure quarters.

Featuring never-before-seen AGSA acquisitions alongside paintings, kimono and samurai armour, the exhibition reveals a world shaped by theatre, beauty, fashion and spectacle, offering a glimpse into Japan’s celebrated “floating world” and the legendary stars of kabuki stage.

Image: Shunkōsai Hokushū, active c.1802–32, Actor Arashi Kichisaburō II as Koretaka Shinnō in Ranpei’s Madness (Toki ni saikō Ariwara keizu), Horie Theater (L), and Nakamura Utaemon III as Katō Masakiyo in Eight Arrays to protect Honjō Castle (Hachijin shugo no honjō), Kado Theater, September 1820, Osaka, Japan, colour woodblock print (nishiki-e), ōban, 38.6 x 26.3 cm; Bequest of M.J.M. Carter AO through the Art Gallery of South Australia Foundation 2026, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, photo: Stewart Adams.