University Times

Pitt alumnus Barry Rosensteel (EDUC ’76) has donated more than 100 rare Japanese woodblock prints to Pitt’s University Library System.

The prints, produced between the 18th and 20th centuries, represent Japanese culture in depictions of landscape, history and theatre. The 126 he is donating to the University, valued at $115,000, will be known as the Barry Rosensteel Japanese Print Collection and will be housed in the Special Collections Department in Hillman Library.

Created with water, rice paste, vegetative color pigments and ground precious metals, the prints fade if exposed to light for extended periods of time. Each print will be housed in an archival-quality folder and stored in a steel file case. Digitization of the prints is expected to begin this fall when the images will be available online.Selected prints will be featured in an exhibition at the University Art Gallery this October during a symposium titled “Japan’s Cultural Imagination and Its Contribution to the World.”

Early Japanese woodblock prints usually are not shown for extended periods of time because of their fragile nature.