Hiroshige's Japan

“Delord’s genius is in isolating details of mundane experience that reveal basic truths of a place captured at a moment in time. Between Tokyo’s towers and Kyoto’s tourist sites, we get glimpses of Japan’s great industrial power, anonymous highway culture, wayside shrines, restaurants, and, most importantly, the subtle rhythms of life.” —Prof. Kendall Brown, author of Quiet Beauty: The Japanese Gardens of North America“Presented alongside Hiroshige’s prints, with descriptions and context, Delord’s work offers an absorbing contemplation of Japan’s past and present via one legendary travel route, and shows how thoroughly upended our surroundings have been in what was, in wider perspective, only a short time.” —The New York Times

Philippe Delord was born in France in 1961. His first travel adventures took place by flashlight beneath his bedcovers with the stories of Jack London, Jules Verne and James Oliver Curwood, all of which inspired in him a longing to travel. In 1999 he traveled to Egypt, following the trail of eighteenth century artist and traveler Louis-Francois Cassas; in 2002 he traced the footsteps of writer-adventurer Henry de Monfried through the countries bordering the Red Sea, and from 2013 onwards he made several visits to Japan to explore the ancient Tokaido Road, and recorded his findings in Hiroshige’s Japan. He sketches from life using pencil and watercolor, and has exhibited his work in Paris and Geneva.