• Mitsuuji struggles with a thief from <i>Kasumitatsu Miyoshi no Genji</i> (霞立三吉の源氏)
  • Bandō Shūka 坂東しうか or 坂東志うか (poetry name of Mitsugorō III - 秀佳) - as Kōguya Yahei [香具や弥兵衛] - probably from the play Chūkō Ōiso ga Yoi (?) (忠孝染分纏)
  • Ichikawa Omezō I [市川男女蔵] as Musashibō Benkei [弁慶]  and Ichikawa Yaozō III [市川八百蔵] as Shinchūnagon Tomomori [新中納言知盛] in <i>Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura</i> [義経千本桜]
  • Posthumous portrait of Arashi Rikan I (嵐璃寛) as Kiso Yoshinaka (木曾義仲) riding an ox as seen in the play <i>Gunpō Fujimi Saigyō</i> (軍法富士見西行)
  • Nakamura Shikan I (中村芝翫) as a celestial being (天人) from 御名残押絵交張 (おんなごりおしえのまぜはり) - from the dance of nine changes
  • Keyamura Rokusuke (毛谷村六助) struggling with three kappa on a riverbank with another swimming in the river.
  • Wakanoura Bay in Kii Province (紀伊和歌浦): from the series <i> Comparison of Renowned Sceneries and Beautiful Women</i> (<i>Honchō fūkei bijin kurabe</i> - 本朝風景美人競)
  • From the left: Sawamura Kunitarō II (沢村国太郎), Arashi Rikan II (嵐璃寛), Arashi Sangorō IV (嵐三五郎) and Arashi Tomisaburō II (あらし富三郎) in imagined roles, a <i>mitate</i>
  • 3:00 AM (<i>Gozen sanji</i> - 午前三時) from the series <i>Scenes of the twenty-four hours parodied</i> (<i>Mitate chūya nijūoji no uchi</i> - 見立昼夜廿四時之内)
  • Dōjōji Maiden (<i>Musume Dōjōji</i> - 道成寺) dressed as a traditional <i>shirabyoshi</i> (白拍子)

Welcome to The Lyon Collection!

Ukiyo-e Prints in the Mike Lyon Collection

Mike Lyon (artist b. 1951) was fortunate to have grown up familiar with Japanese prints. In his youth Lyon’s parents and grandparents displayed examples that certainly inspired his own artistic development. He began acquiring Japanese color woodcuts early in his career as an artist. The types of prints that feature most prominently among the many hundreds in Lyon's collection reflect the artist’s deep appreciation of the human figure and the expressive facial portrait. The vast majority of Japanese prints in the Lyon collection represent views of actors yakusha-e) and beautiful women (bijin-ga), and in particular the close-up, bust-length portraits of the same (okubi-e).

Browse Featured Galleries