“Life of Nichiren” in the Connections Gallery: Experiments in Community Curating

Life of Nichiren, Radical Prophet of 13^th century Japan, as Portrayed in the Woodblock Prints of Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798–1861)

Presented by: James Mark Shields, Assistant Professor of Comparative Humanities and Asian Thought, Bucknell University

March 3 – 26

This exhibition is a program of the Connections Gallery: Experiments in Community Curating

This series of ten woodblock prints, entitled Breif Illustrated Biography of he The Great Sect Founder 高祖御一代略図, narrates the teaching career of Nichren 日蓮 (1222–1282), eponymous founder of the Nichiren sect of Japanese Buddhism. The prints highlight key moments in Nichiren’s life, establishing him as a prophet of tremendous courage and spiritual power as well as a victim of both political intrigue and inter-religious rivalry. The series, first published in 1835-1836, is the work of Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798-1861), one of the Japan’s last great ukiyo-e artists.