Japanese woodblock prints are a specialized art form that began in Tokyo during the Edo period (1603-1868).  From the emerging merchant class, woodblock prints became a method of "mass-production." Many of the first prints were meant to be used as advertisements, not art to be hung up in museums.

Japanese woodblock prints began to grow in popularity in Japan around the early to mid 18th century.  Pieces often depicted actors from Kabuki theater shows going on at the time, or with the rise of the merchant class during the 17th century, woodblock prints began to reflect images of contemporary urban life.   Woodblock prints became very popular because a group of craftsmen could produce many copies of the same picture within a short period of time. 

Ukiyo-e (浮世絵) prints and paintings (see Ukiyo-e) are among the most widely known and admired arts of the Edo period. While Ukiyo-e artists never abandoned classical subjects such as nature scenes, their response to their merchant-class patrons resulted in subjects more specific to their own commoner experience.  Pictures of beautiful women quickly became a popular subjects, especially those of the yoshiwara ("pleasure quarters"). 

 At the turn of the twentieth century, a branch of woodblock prints, called Sôsaku Hanga (creative prints, 創作版画) began with the works of printmaker, Ishii Hakutei (1882-1958).  The most famous works of the sosaku hanga movement was the self-engraved and self-printed woodblock portrait of a fisherman by Yamamoto Kanae (1882-1946). A key attribute of this school what that the artists became involved in all aspects of the work - design, art, block carving, printing, and publishing (see Sôsaku ).

The Shin Hanga ("new prints", 新版画) movement extolled the virtues of the traditional ukiyo-e studio system involving the artist, carver, printer, and publisher. Its philosophy was at odds with the sôsaku hanga ("creative print") movement, which avidly supported the direct involvement of the artists in designing, engraving, and printing their own works.  The works of publisher Watanabe Shôzaburô (1885-1962) are considered central to the Shin Hanga movement. (see  Shin Hanga).