Thursday 17 July, 2025
6:00pm BST - 7:00pm BST
In-person lecture at the Hostry, Norwich Cathedral and online via Zoom.
50 min lecture followed by Q&A.
Free and open to all, booking essential.
To check your time zone conversion if you are joining from outside the UK, click here.
To attend in person, please email sisjac@sainsbury-institute.org or call +44 (0) 1603 597507 to book your place. Zoom booking is available at the bottom of this page.
Doors open at 17:45 and the lecture will be held at Norwich Cathedral Hostry, NR1 4DH. Please note that in-person spaces are limited and will be allocated on a first come, first served basis. A reception will be held after the talk.
Speaker
Dr Alfred Haft (British Museum)
About the Talk
Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) rose from humble samurai beginnings to become one of Japan’s most talented, prolific and successful artists. He lived during the last decades of the Edo period (1615-1868), an unsettled time, but his work shows no sign of turbulence. He instead stands out for identifying a subtle lyricism in the experience of travel as well as a bond between people and the natural world. This presentation explores Hiroshige’s landscape and nature prints as a way to consider what Hiroshige knew of the world and how this knowledge may have informed the artistic world that he created.
About the Speaker
Alfred Haft is a curator in the Japanese Section of the Department of Asia in the British Museum. His publications include Hiroshige: Artist of the Open Road (BM Press, 2025); ‘Capturing Nature’ in Salon Culture in Japan: Making Art, 1750-1900 (BM Press, 2024); ‘Hokusai and Obuse: A Study of Cultural Mobility during the Edo Period’ in Late Hokusai: Society, Thought, Technique, Legacy (BM Press, 2023); and Aesthetic Strategies of the Floating World: Mitate, Yatsushi and Furyu in Early Modern Japanese Popular Culture (Brill, 2012).
Image: Night View of the Eight Scenic Spots of Kanazawa in Musashi Province. Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858). Colour-woodblock print triptych, 1857. Collection of Alan Medaugh. Photo copyright Alan Medaugh; photo by Matsuba Ryoko.
The Third Thursday Lecture series is funded by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation and Yakult UK.