This collection of prints was started in 1969 when Joe Kagle was selected to visit and study in the Orient on a Fulbright Scholarship, studying Chinese painting in Taiwan. Later, in 1970, the Kagles journeyed to Guam to teach at the University of Guam. During their six years there, they traveled to Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan, collecting works of art to fill holes in their collection. In Kyoto, Osaka, Tokyo and other Japanese cities, they collected over 500 Japanese prints, dating from the late 18th century to the 1890s. The subjects ranged from landscape to domestic scenes to sumo wrestler to shunga to beautiful women to Kubuki and Noh theater characters.
The Kagles are not alone in their love of the Japanese prints of the Edo period. The artists and collectors of the West have admired and acquired the prints of Japan for centuries but particularly since the end of the 19th century. French, American, Russian and Japanese artists, poets and authors collected the prints, which were wrapped around pottery. There were the rejects of famous Edo (1600-1868) printmakers. Smoothed out, the prints hung on the walls of studios of the leading painters. In time, original prints were collected and coveted. As Camille Pissarro wrote to his eldest son, Lucien, in February 1893, "I find in the art of this astonishing people nothing strained, a calm, a grandeur, an extraordinary unity÷a rather subdued radiance that is nevertheless brilliant."
One area that the Kagles collected is Kabuki theater, a favorite theme for early printmakers. It came into being between 1592 and 1614. Okuni, a Buddhist nun, brought a group of nuns to Kyoto where they presented religious songs and dances. Groups of women from the gay quarter in Kyoto sprang up in imitation and were highly successful. In 1629 the government passed a law against these activities. In place of female Kabuki, troupes of beautiful young boys of fifteen or sixteen began to present the same kind of entertainment. Finally, in 1652, the government banned youth Kabuki as well and so Kabuki became a theater-form of skill and artistry rather than physical attractiveness. It became a true art form. This new period of Kabuki is the heart of the Kagle collection.
Of course, with Western existentialism, a "live fast, die young and have a good looking corpse" attitude, the artist and collector of the 19th and 20th century began to look at Japanese prints for inspiration and images. Even modern Japanese printmakers, like Ushie Shinohara, look back with awe and open admiration to the 19th century Japanese prints. "Ukiyo-E" is a mind set that we can all see in todayâs world.