Manga Before Manga: Japanese Art from the CollectionOctober 3, 2026–January 31, 2027

At the Brooklyn Museum, “Manga Before Manga: Japanese Art from the Collection” traces visual storytelling in Japan before the modern comic form took shape. The exhibition draws on the museum’s holdings of Edo- and Meiji-era prints and illustrated works, where gesture, framing, and serial scenes carry narrative across a page. In New York, it situates manga in a longer history of popular images that circulated widely and shaped everyday taste. One clear takeaway is how many “manga” conventions read less like invention than continuity.