temporary exhibition

This exhibit focuses on the years between 1860 and 1890, when the foundations of modern Japan were laid. These were the thirty turbulent years of the Meiji Restoration, when Japanese government, economics, society, and culture underwent dramatic changes as Japan shed its feudal political system and transformed itself to become the first modern constitutional state in East Asia.

During those same years, the printing industry experienced dramatic changes too, as new innovations vied with traditional techniques for prominence. Whereas Japan's printing industry had previously relied on wood-block printing techniques, now such processes as letterpress printing and lithography were gradually gaining in popularity.

Tokyo was the main stage where both the modernization of Japan and the modernization of printing were rapidly being carried out, and in this exhibition, some 130 items, mainly from the Printing Museum's collection, demonstrate how changes in Tokyo's printing industry went hand-in-hand with Japan's modernization.