This beautifully designed book is a celebration of Tokyo: one of the world’s most creative, dynamic and fascinating cities. Visually bold and richly detailed, the publication looks at a city which has undergone constant destruction and renewal over its 400-year history and tells the stories of the people who have made Tokyo so famous with their boundless drive for the new and innovative – from samurai to avantgarde artists today. Artistic highlights include Kano school paintings; the iconic woodblock prints of Hiroshige; Tokyo Pop Art posters; the photography of Moriyama Daido and Ninagawa Mika; manga; film; and contemporary art. This accessible volume features 28 texts by international experts of Japanese culture, as well as original statements by influential artists.

In this book launch, co-editors Lena Fritsch and Clare Pollard present selected prints and photographs of the city, and discuss their research.

Discounted copies of the book will be available to attendees (available to UK attendees only).

About the contributors

Dr Lena Fritsch is the Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art at the Ashmolean Museum (University of Oxford), working on exhibitions, displays and acquisitions of international art. One of her main research areas is Japanese art and photography of the 20th and 21st centuries. Before joining the Ashmolean, she was a curator at Tate Modern. In 2018 Fritsch published one of the first overviews on Japanese photography in English: Ravens & Red Lipstick: Japanese Photography since 1945 (English version with Thames & Hudson, Japanese with Seigensha). Other monographs include A.R. Penck: I Think in Pictures (2019), an English-language version of Moriyama Daido’s Tales of Tono (2012), The Body as a Screen: Japanese Art Photography of the 1990s (2011), and Yasumasa Morimura’s Self-Portrait as Actress (2008). Fritsch holds a PhD in Art History from Bonn University, and also studied at Keio University, Tokyo.

Dr Clare Pollard is Curator of Japanese Art at the Ashmolean Museum. Her research has focused mainly on decorative arts of the Meiji era, and her publications include Master Potter of Meiji Japan: Makuzu Kozan (1842–1916) and his Workshop (2003) and Threads of Silk and Gold: Ornamental Textiles from Meiji Japan (2012). In recent years she has developed a series of exhibitions and catalogues of the Ashmolean’s Japanese print collections, including Hiroshige – Landscape Cityscape (2014) and Plum Blossom & Green Willow: Japanese Surimono Poetry Prints (2018). Before joining the Ashmolean she worked at the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.