Chicago has a luminous reason to slow down and look closely this fall. The Art Institute of Chicago is presenting Utamaro: Elements of Beauty, on view September 23 through December 21, 2026, in Gallery 107. The exhibition brings together more than 40 of Kitagawa Utamaro’s most celebrated designs, all drawn from the museum’s own collection, and it is free with museum admission.
Utamaro’s portrayals of women were groundbreaking in his time. Beautiful women had long been a mainstay of ukiyo-e, the “pictures of the floating world,” but Utamaro gave his subjects a fresh vibrancy, experimenting with dramatic close-ups that hint at their complex inner lives. His meteoric rise began in 1780, when the young artist started working with the publisher Tsutaya Juzaburo, a collaboration of more than a decade that shaped his characteristic rendering of feminine beauty.
Among the highlights are Hour of the Ox, from the series The Twelve Hours in Yoshiwara, from about 1794, and Kitchen Scene, from about 1794/95. Together the prints showcase the era’s elaborate hairstyles and fashions, diaphanous fabrics and layered garments, alongside tender scenes of women at work and at home. Utamaro also illustrated extraordinary printed books, many considered the pinnacle of woodblock printing.
Curated by Janice Katz, Roger L. Weston Curator of Japanese Art, this is a joyful invitation to spend unhurried time with one of Japan’s most beloved printmakers, right in the heart of Chicago.
Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, via Wikimedia Commons
