青幻舎 SEIGENSHA Art Publishing

Young and old, men and women, aristocrats and monks, kami and demons, creatures of all sorts: see one and all amusingly stripped down to their naked selves in this now-updated collection of shunga by Kawanabe Kyosai (1831–1889).

Shunga (“spring picture”), the term used today for Edo-period depictions of sexual intercourse, did not become widespread until the advent of modernity in the succeeding Meiji era; in Kyosai’s own time, these images were more commonly known as warai-e (“pictures to laugh by”), reflecting their lighthearted and joyful character. An everyday part of life for people in all walks of society, warai-e not only offered visual pleasure but were also included in wedding trousseaus and kept as talismans to ensure luck and ward off fires and other calamities. By bringing mirth, it was believed, they also brought good fortune.

Kyosai, more than any other artist, exuberantly carried on this spirit and tradition of shunga/warai-e as the nexus of sex and laughter. Indeed, we might even describe his works as shunga’s last great guffaw.

Painter and ukiyo-e artist Kawanabe Kyosai (1831–1889) worked during Japan’s time of transition from shogunate rule to emergence as a modern nation under the new Meiji regime. He was famously defiant of authority, so much so that he was arrested in 1870 for criticizing the government in a picture—one of the many caricatures and satires he produced over his career. A self-professed “demon of painting,” he was schooled in the Kano tradition but avidly incorporated a wide range of other styles and techniques.

Israel Goldman is a leading dealer of Japanese prints, paintings, and illustrated books who counts numerous museums and collectors around the world among his clients. He graduated from Harvard University in 1981 and has lived in London since. His collection of the works of Kawanabe Kyosai is considered among the best and most comprehensive in the world. Aside from Japanese art, he is an avowed lover of classical music, vintage wines, and Welsh terriers.