The Corfu Museum of Asian Art was pleased to organize the temporary exhibition entitled ‘Ghosts and Spirits. The Supernatural in Japanese ukiyo-e prints’, which was open to the public from the 1st of October 2013. Curator of the exhibition was Despina Zernioti, Director of the Corfu Museum of Asian Art.

The exhibition included the five rare Japanese prints from the series ‘Hyaku monogatari’ – One hundred Ghost stories – designed in 1831-32 by the famous Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). The woodblock prints belong to the collector Gregorios Manos, the founder of the Corfu Museum of Asian Art. They are all based on traditional Japanese supernatural tales or inspired by uncanny moments in Kabuki plays. They are excellent examples of Japanese ukiyo-e art that influenced European art and the art of comics.

The exhibition also included a tribute to Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904), international outstanding author of the exotic and occult. The exhibition enriched with books of Hearn from Takis Efstathiou Collection.

Hearn was born on the Ionian Island of Lefkada by a Greek mother and an Irish father. He had great interest in traditional Japanese literature and folklores and he wrote dispatches about Japanese life, as well as ghost stories based on local folktales. He wrote a dozen books which interpreted Japan and its civilization to Western readers.