Image: Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
An ongoing presentation at San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum brings together colorful woodblock prints from Tsukioka Kogyo’s ‘One Hundred Plays of the Noh Theater,’ a series published between 1922 and 1926. The works are on view in the Tateuchi Japanese Galleries as part of the museum’s permanent collection displays.
Tsukioka Kogyo (1869–1927) created the series as a limited-edition set of 100 images depicting characters and scenes from Noh, Japan’s highly stylized theatrical tradition. The prints are made with ink and color on paper, with the series distinguished by the use of gold, silver, and mica to heighten the visual richness of the compositions.
Each image records a key moment from a major Noh play. Rather than presenting theater as a moving performance, Kogyo’s prints focus attention on the actors’ poses, expressions, costumes, masks, and props. The resulting portraits preserve the drama of the stage while also documenting the elaborate visual language through which Noh characters are identified.
The museum describes the works as particularly revealing in their treatment of costume. As Noh theater’s status in Japan evolved over centuries, performers’ outfits developed into finely crafted ensembles. Kogyo’s detailed compositions show layered garments alongside wigs, headdresses, masks, fans, and other objects, each carrying symbolic information about the character being portrayed.
Among the works identified by the museum are ‘The Goblin of Kurama’ and ‘Ama, The Woman Diver,’ both dated 1922–1926. The prints belong to the Showa and Taisho periods, respectively, and are credited to the Gift of the Lt. Col. A.T. Snell and Genevieve A. Snell Family Trust. The presentation is curated by Yuki Morishima, associate curator of Japanese art.
The prints on view were donated by Philip Snell of San Francisco. The Asian Art Museum’s permanent collection includes a complete set of the series, with 96 prints generously provided by Snell. The institution, formally the Asian Art Museum–Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and Culture, is located at 200 Larkin Street in San Francisco.
‘One Hundred Plays of the Noh Theater by Tsukioka Kogyo’ is ongoing in the Tateuchi Japanese Galleries and is included with general admission. The museum is open Thursdays from 1 to 8 p.m. and Fridays through Mondays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; it is closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
