It is delightful to see the first exhibition in the West devoted to the prolific, yet relatively under-studied Meiji artist Yôshû Chikanobu (1838–1893). To date, Chikanobu has been overshadowed by the popular artists of the time, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839–1892), Toyohara Kunichika (1835–1900), and Kobayashi Kiyochika (1847–1915). Although Chikanobu’s works are often discussed in books and journals, there has been no monograph or exhibition devoted to him in Japan or in the West; thus both the exhibition and accompanying catalogue are significant contributions to the study of Chikanobu’s work and to Meiji prints in general. The exhibition opened in August 2006 at Scripps College’s Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery. In the catalogue, curator Bruce Coats recounts the history of the college’s Japanese print collection, which began with a gift of a single print in 1944. Enthusiastic donors gave the college the core of the Chikanobu collection in 1993, including the set of fifty prints of the 1884 series Setsugekka (Snow, Moon, Flowers) and the fifty prints of the 1886 set of Azuma nishiki chûya kurabe (Eastern Brocades: Day and Night Compared [I feel the translation should be Azuma Brocades: Day and Night Compared, as Azuma is a rhetorical name for Tokyo or...