The Frances M. Maguire Art Museum held the opening reception for an exhibit titled “Visions of Japan: The Art of Woodblock Prints” Dec. 5, featuring over 25 woodblock prints from St. Joe’s art collection.
The exhibit, featuring Japanese woodblock prints from the late 18th century through the 20th century, was curated by students in the Curating an Exhibition course taught by Martha Easton, P.h.D., associate professor of art history and program director of Museum Studies, with guidance from Erin Downey, Ph.D., assistant curator of the Maguire Art Museum.
Throughout the fall semester, 15 students in the class learned about objects in the museum, completed original research and got hands-on experience in curating a museum exhibit. Easton said the course was experiential and collaborative for students.
“It’s different from me standing in front of them lecturing,” Easton said. “We were working together to create something that’s open to the public.
Woodblock prints are an old form of art that are carved out of a block of wood and then inked with colors. Artists would often create prints of Sumo wrestlers, Kabuki actors or landscapes, Easton said.
“One of the most famous woodblock artists is Hiroshige, and he started doing landscapes of famous places in Japan,” Easton said. “People started collecting those, almost like postcards.”
For many students, like Mary LaRosa ’25, Japanese woodblock prints were an entirely new art form. LaRosa said the process of creating the Japanese prints is what surprised her the most.
“There are so many steps that are part of it,” LaRosa said. “In the Edo period, multiple individuals assisted in completing the process of making a print, but today, more artists complete all of the steps on their own.”
As artists shifted to taking on the entire process themselves, they began using different subjects and styles, Easton said.
Shannon Tonetta ’26 said a highlight of the course was working in such an interactive environment in which students played a large role in every part of curating the exhibit.
“It was fun because it gave us the opportunity to do a bunch of different things,” Tonetta said. “The organization stuff is different than the research, which is different from the writing or the curating.”
During the curation process, students collaborated by peer-reviewing each other’s artwork labels, which describe each piece in the exhibit.
Joey Kowal ’27 said the course taught him how to receive constructive feedback.
“I definitely learned the importance of being able to accept edits from other people,” Kowal said. “When I wrote the labels, a lot of edits were made to those things I made.”
After the labels were completed, students then organized the pieces. Tonetta said this was one of the most challenging parts of the process.
“Our main job was researching the pieces and then organizing the show,” Tonetta said. “We had to plan where each piece was going. That took weeks and was definitely a point of contention.”
LaRosa said the most rewarding part of the experience was seeing everyone’s creativity come to life.
“Everyone had their own unique visions,” LaRosa said. “When we brought them all together, we were able to create an amazing exhibition that we could share with the SJU community and others.”
The “Visions of Japan: The Art of Woodblock Prints” exhibit will run until March 30, 2025.
