Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Japanese Print Collection

This installation presents ten of Utagawa Kunisada’s three-paneled (triptych) woodcuts from the series Twelve Months. The set depicts seasonal activities related to each month, alternating between the specialness (hare) of religious festival days and the mundane pursuits of everyday life (ke). Print series of the twelve months were introduced in Japan in the 1700s in Japan, and in the 1800s Kunisada resourcefully took advantage of the triptych format, printing each section separately and aligning them to create a more expansive surface. His monumental compositions brought new levels of graceful complexity and dynamic unity to a popular subject.

Until 1873, the Japanese used a lunar calendar, in which the rotation of the seasons began with spring. The new year, which marked the first day of spring, usually occurred between late January and mid-February in the solar Western calendar.

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller (1874-1948), a daughter of Rhode Island senator Nelson W. Aldrich and the wife of John D. Rockefeller Jr., was a lifelong supporter of the arts. Mrs. Rockefeller assembled a remarkable collection of Asian woodblock prints, donating more than 700 Japanese prints to the RISD Museum. Architect Philip Johnson was commissioned in 1952 by Mrs. Rockefeller’s sons, Nelson and David, and her sister, Lucy Truman Aldrich, to design a room for the continuous exhibition of Japanese prints at the Museum. Originally located on the east side of this floor, the room has been recreated here to Johnson’s specifications.

We are grateful to Deborah Del Gais, former RISD Museum curator of Asian art, for her research on the prints displayed here.