Gallery Talk: Japanese Woodblock Prints & the Language of Flowers

In 2015, Japan’s Empress Michiko chose a gold-leaf cherry-blossom woodblock print by Yowsaku Sekino for the Imperial Palace. Now 20 of Sekino’s prints are on view at Art House SF in the Castro, his only solo exhibitions outside Japan.

Gallery founder Max Khusid leads a small-group talk in front of the prints. He’ll cover ukiyo-e and the postwar “creative prints” movement, how Japanese prints reached Van Gogh and later Steve Jobs, how Sekino layers 10+ hand-carved blocks and applies gold leaf by hand, and hanakotoba, the Japanese language of flowers.

Limited to 15 people per talk. Tickets are $10, credited toward any purchase. The exhibition is free, Wednesday to Sunday through November 1.