Speaker: Professor Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere (Research Director, Sainsbury Institute) About the Talk International enthusiasm for manga and anime is at an all-time high. Manga has finally established itself as part of the mainstream culture in the United States, with sales of print manga titles in the U.S. increasing 27 times faster than those in the conventional book industry in the USA. In Europe, manga has long been recognised as a powerful form of visual graphic expression. Britain, however, has traditionally been a bit slower in its embrace of manga. Bucking this trend in 2019, the British Museum held one of the most ambitious exhibitions on manga, focusing on its history, range, and impact. Featuring over 50 artists from past to present, the Citi Manga exhibition attempted to contextualise and as well as capture the power of manga. Happily, the exhibition was a confirmed success with record visitor numbers, attracting new diverse audiences to the museum. Six years later, the de Young Museum, part of the Fine Art Museums of San Francisco in the United States is currently hosting a very different manga exhibition featuring the art of manga drawings (genga) highlighting 10 manga artists (mangaka). With a total of 689 individual works on display, this exhibition is one of the most ambitious one to showcase this important art form. Working with the artists, multiple Japanese publishers, and various stakeholders to create this exhibition was instructive. This lecture will introduce the Art of Manga and explore the lessons learned and possibilities for the future. PLEASE NOTE: We kindly request that no screenshots or recordings are taken during this webinar. By registering for this lecture, you also confirm that you will not use third party AI transcription or recording software for this event.

Manga, a Japanese visual narrative art form, has evolved over the past century into a global phenomenon. Once referring primarily to comics and graphic novels, it now encompasses digital media, fine art, fashion, and other cultural expressions, achieving immense international reach. In Japan, manga is read across all generations and remains a thriving industry, with domestic revenues in 2023 reaching approximately 694 billion yen (4.7 billion US dollars). Exhibitions of manga in Japan over the last two decades have typically highlighted the work of a single publisher or artist. In contrast, the British Museum’s 2019 exhibition presented original drawings (genga) by fifty artists within a historical framework. This autumn, beginning September 25, 2025, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco will stage The Art of Manga, an ambitious exhibition of drawings by ten leading contemporary artists. This lecture introduces manga as a compelling art form by focusing on these two major exhibitions, both curated by Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere.

The Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures is proud to announce that its Research Director, Professor Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere, is the curator of a major new exhibition, Art of Manga, opening at the de Young Museum in San Francisco on 27 September 2025. This will be the first large-scale exhibition in the Americas to explore manga as an […]

The Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures is proud to announce that its Research Director, Professor Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere, is the curator of a major new exhibition, Art of Manga, opening at the de Young Museum in San Francisco on 27 September 2025. This will be the first large-scale exhibition in the Americas to explore manga as an […]

We are pleased to announce that we have chosen from a large number of applications six fellows for the Ishibashi Foundation Network Leader Fellowships in Japanese Arts 2025-2026 following a rigorous selection process. The names of the candidates, their institutions, and the projects they are pursuing as part of the programme are as follows:

Beyond Japan with Oliver Moxham · Episode

From 16 to 20 June 2025, a small group of researchers led by Dr Eugenia Bogdanova-Kummer (Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures) travelled to Uji, Kyoto Prefecture, to conduct archival research into the private collection of the prominent avant-garde calligrapher Morita Shiryū (1912–1998). The Morita archive has had a fragmented history—at […]