Charles Ricketts and Japan: British Japonisme of the second generation from the 1880s to the 1930s

Charles Ricketts (1866-1931) was a versatile British artist who worked as a theatre designer, painter, sculptor, book designer, art critic, connoisseur, and collector. This thesis explores Ricketts’s Japonisme: the interaction between Ricketts and Japanese art and people through his work and collection from the 1880s to the 1930s. This represents the comparatively little-explored period of the second generation of Japonists, who flourished in London. Chapter 1 examines the development of the Japanese art collection that Ricketts and his partner Charles Shannon jointly established. It also provides a comprehensive analysis of the collection bequeathed to the British Museum and the Fitzwilliam Museum. Chapter 2 focuses on Ricketts as a scholarly Japonist. Following an exploration of his interaction with Japanese people in London, the chapter explores Japanese art studies in Britain at that time and Ricketts’s Japanese art criticism regarding ukiyo-e artist, Kitagawa Utamaro and the Japan-British Exhibition of 1910 in London. Chapter 3 discusses Ricketts’s artworks and their connection to Japanese art. It explores his theatre designs, book designs, paintings, and sculptures, especially theatrical costume designs.