Catalog of an exhibition held at Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, Oct. 4, 2012 - Jan. 20, 2013.

Featuring hundreds of illustrations, Japanese Prints: From Early Masters to the Modern is a comprehensive history and survey of Japan’s most famous visual art form. The author, Mr. Michener has illustrated the book with lesser-known masterpieces rather than with those few prints that have been reproduced almost ad nauseam. Unlike earlier books, this does not stop with the past century, but brings the subject completely up to date, introducing, in the modern Japanese print, some of the most exciting art being created in Japan—and in the world—today. Japanese Prints also becomes a revealing account of the collecting of Japanese prints, with many valuable hints to collectors based upon the author's own experiences in gathering together one of the best print collections of recent years: it is a collecting field in which many hints are needed, with prices varying from $5 to $5,000 per print, and with forgeries and doubtful attributions on every hand.

Reproduces ukiyo-e prints from the incomparable collection of Japanese art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Many tattoo connoisseurs consider the Japanese tradition to be the finest in the world for its detail, complexity, and compositional skill. Its style and subject matter are drawn from the visual treasure trove of Japanese popular culture, in particular the colour woodblock prints of the early nineteenth century known as ukiyo-e. This book tells the fascinating story of how ukiyo-e first inspired tattoo artists as the pictorial tradition of tattooing in Japan was just beginning. It explores the Japanese tattoo's evolving meanings, from symbol of devotion to punishment and even to crime, and reveals the tales behind specific motifs. With lush, colourful images of flowers blooming on the arm of a thief, sea monsters coiling across the back of a hero, and legendary warriors battling on the chests of actors, the tattoos in these Japanese prints can offer the same vivid inspiration today as they did two hundred years ago.