The powerfully alluring images created by Japanese artist Kitagawa Utamaro (c1753-1806) have enshrined his reputation as a master of the woodblock print medium, particularly in the genre of pictures of beautiful women. 

On the opening day of the exhibition Hymn to beauty: the art of Utamaro, The Art Gallery of NSW will host a symposium of scholars discussing the urban milieu of Edo where Utamaro found inspiration in the entertainment district and balanced artistic passion, commercial demands and censorship rules.

The symposium will also consider the printmaking process and the enthusiastic reception of his prints in Europe.

Dr Julie Nelson Davis is associate professor of the history of art at the University of Pennsylvania. Her recent book Utamaro and the spectacle of beauty (2007) offers a new approach to the status of the artist and the construction of identity, gender, sexuality and celebrity in the Edo period.

Dr Gary Hickey has studied traditional Japanese printmaking in Japan and worked as curator at the National Gallery of Victoria and the National Gallery of Australia. He curated Beauty and Desire in Edo period Japan (1998) and the Japanese art in the 2001 exhibition Monet & Japan.

Dr Takeshi Moriyama is a lecturer in the Asian studies program, and a fellow of the Asia Research Centre at Murdoch University, Perth, specialising in early modern Japanese history, particularly popular culture and the publishing industry.

Amy Reigle Newland is an independent scholar of Japanese woodblock prints and has worked extensively as an author and editor in that field. Some of her recent publications include The Hotei encyclopedia of Japanese woodblock prints (2005; editor) and Golden Journey: Japanese art from Australian collections (2009; co-author/co-editor).

Dr Toby Slade lectures at the University of Tokyo researching Asian modernity and the history and theory of fashion. His book Japanese fashion: a cultural history (2010) details the entire sweep of fashion and clothing in Japan from the earliest times to today.

Dr Khanh Trinh is curator of Japanese art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and curator of Hymn to Beauty: the art of Utamaro. She received her PhD from the University of Zurich and she is former curator of Japanese art at the Museum of East Asian Art, Berlin, now part of the Asian Art Museum.