This series of watercolor drawings takes as its jumping-off point Hiroshige’s woodblock print cycle One Hundred Views of Edo, a set of 117 views of specific locations in and around Edo (now Tokyo). Researchers have created maps which diagram Hiroshige’s series, with points denoting the approximate location from which a person could have stood in the 19th century in order to see the view depicted in each print.

Each watercolor in this series was created according to a multi-step process. First, the arrangement of coordinates from maps of Hiroshige’s prints was transposed, at scale, over a map of New York City. Then, photographs were taken at each of the resultant locations in New York City. These photographs, like the prints, were seasonal; for example, if a given print by Hiroshige depicts a “Spring” view, the photograph of the corresponding New York location would be taken during the Spring. The watercolor drawings based on these photographs pay homage to Hiroshige’s compositional idiosyncrasy: for each photograph, a selection of shapes were taken from the corresponding woodblock print, which serve as a sort of mask placed over the photograph. So the resultant watercolors depict only the parts of the photograph that are visible through the shapes pulled from the corresponding print.

This installation consists of the 42 watercolors that reference Hiroshige’s 42 “Spring” prints.