Masterpieces Of Japanese Prints

RUPERT FAULKNER is Deputy Curator in the Far Eastern Department of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, where he has particular responsibility for the collections of Japanese art. Born in Yokohama in 1955 and subsequently educated in Britain, he graduated from Cambridge University with a degree in Japanese studies. After joining the V&A in 1984, he set up a database system for recataloguing the V&A's extensive collection of ukiyo-e woodblock prints. He subsequently concentrated his attentions on contemporary Japanese studio crafts, building up the museum's collection in this area and organizing the exhibition, "Japanese Studio Crafts: Tradition and the Avant-Garde." He is currently engaged in the publication of a book on the V&A's collection of ukiyo-e fan prints by Utagawa Hiroshige and a project to examine the relationship between Japanese food culture and the ceramic traditions of Seto and Mino. RICHARD LANE is a leading American scholar of Japanese prints. He received degrees in Japanese language and literature at the University of Hawaii and Columbia University, doing graduate research at Tokyo, Waseda, and Kyoto universities as well as at the Tokyo National Museum. His publications include Masters of the Japanese Print: Their World and Their Work (1962), Images from the Floating World (1978), and Hokusai: Life and Work (1989), a definitive monograph in English on this major artist.