The Ukiyo-e Artist Who Drew Cats Wearing Human Clothes
There’s a print by Utagawa Kuniyoshi — a late Edo-period ukiyo-e artist — where a group of cats have taken up human occupations. They go about their business with complete seriousness. Kuniyoshi was famously fond of cats, and that affection shows up throughout his work — not as background detail, but as subject matter. The Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art’s upcoming exhibition makes clear that this was only one part of a much larger imagination.
That energy runs through everything he made. Warrior heroes rendered at impossible scale across three-panel triptychs. Giant whales. Animated household objects. Samurai scenes with unusually forceful compositions. Landscapes that borrowed from Western pictorial methods and applied those ideas to Japanese scenery. The museum is presenting around 400 works in a large survey that spans warrior prints, comic prints, beauty prints, landscapes, actor prints, and hand-painted works.
Running from April 24 to June 21, 2026, Utagawa Kuniyoshi: The Spellbinding Ukiyo-e Works of an Eccentric Artist is organized into eight sections: actor prints, warrior prints and narrative images, landscapes, everyday life and the news, surimono and animal prints, beauty prints, hand-drawn paintings, and comic prints. That matters because Kuniyoshi is often remembered first for heroic samurai imagery, but this exhibition shows he was far more than a one-subject artist.
The comic and animal material may be the easiest way in for first-time viewers. The museum highlights Kuniyoshi’s cat prints, anthropomorphic creatures, and witty visual inventions alongside the bold warrior work that made his name. A few featured works listed by the museum include Transformations of Fashionable Cats, Miyamoto Musashi Attacking a Giant Whale, and The Night Attack in Act XI of the Chūshingura.
One practical detail worth knowing before you go: the exhibition has a mid-run rotation. Works are split between an early period from April 24 to May 24 and a late period from May 26 to June 21, with some pieces shown only during one half of the run. Transformations of Fashionable Cats and Miyamoto Musashi Attacking a Giant Whale are works that will be on view throughout, while others are period-specific.
If you are going on a weekday, Friday is the best option. The exhibition stays open until 20:00 on Fridays rather than closing at 17:00, which makes this an easy after-work stop in Sakae.
The Details
Utagawa Kuniyoshi
The Spellbinding Ukiyo-e Works of an Eccentric Artist
Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art
(10F, Aichi Arts Center)
Dates:
April 24 – June 21, 2026
Times:
10:00–17:00
Fridays until 20:00
Last admission:
30 minutes before closing
Closed: Mondays
(Except May 4 and May 7)
Entry:
Adults ¥1,800
University students ¥1,000
High school students ¥800
Junior high school students and under free
Tickets:
Available at the door also online at:
Lawson Ticket (L-code 45063)
7Ticket (113-706)
Ticket Pia (P-code 687-380)
Bonus:
Exhibition tickets also include admission to the museum’s collection exhibition during the show period
Address:
1-13-2 Higashisakura
Higashi-ku, Nagoya
On the web:
Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art — Kuniyoshi exhibition page
Special Kuniyoshi Exhibition Website
Access
By subway: Take the Higashiyama Line to Sakae Station (H10) or the Meijo Line to Sakae Station (M05). From there, it is about a 3-minute walk via the Oasis 21 underground passage or the 2F connecting bridge.
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