Asian Art Museum Opens Noh Theater Print Show, On View Through February 2027
The Asian Art Museum opened One Hundred Plays of the Noh Theater by Tsukioka Kogyo on July 16, 2026. The show sits in the Tateuchi Japanese Galleries and runs through February 21, 2027. It is included with general admission, so no separate exhibition ticket is required.
What is on view
The prints are drawn from Kogyo’s series of the same name, published between 1922 and 1926 as a limited edition set of 100 images. The printing is embellished with gold, silver, and mica. Each image captures one onstage moment from a major Noh play, with the character identified through layered garments, wigs, headdresses, masks, fans, and props.
Tsukioka Kogyo lived from 1869 to 1927. The museum notes that as Noh’s standing in Japan shifted over the centuries, performers’ outfits developed into finely crafted objects in their own right, which is why the prints work as a record of Noh costuming as much as of the plays.
How the prints got here
Every print on view was donated by Philip Snell of San Francisco. The museum’s permanent collection holds a complete set of the series, 96 of which came from Snell. The installation is curated by Yuki Morishima, associate curator of Japanese art.
What else is showing
Two exhibitions are in their last days. What Echoes in the Small Mountain: Park Dae-sung and the West Coast closes July 20, and Chiharu Shiota: Two Home Countries, the artist’s first Bay Area solo museum show, closes July 27. We covered the Shiota closing date earlier this month.
Longer runs include FX Harsono: Writing in the Rain and A Sound Work by Lala Rukh: Subh-e-Umeed through September 7, This Asian American Life through September 28, and Al-An deSouza: Table Settings through November 2. Two exhibitions open later in the year: Ha Chong-Hyun: Retrospective on September 25 and Vishnu’s Cosmic Ocean on October 23.
If you go
The Asian Art Museum is at 200 Larkin Street in the Civic Center, next to the Civic Center/UN Plaza BART and Muni Metro station. Hours are Thursday 1 to 8 p.m. and Friday through Monday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The museum is closed Tuesday and Wednesday. For low-cost visits, see our guides to free museum days in San Francisco and the city’s major museum collections.
Exhibition dates and details are from the Asian Art Museum.
Photo: InSapphoWeTrust, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
