Gendai Hanga Center (Japan)

The Gendai Hanga Center was founded in Japan in 1974 for the purpose of proliferating the art of print making throughout the country, and opening up the genre to art collectors. The Center worked with hundreds of artists from various mediums all over the world before shutting down in 1985. In 1983, the Gendai Hanga Center commissioned Andy Warhol to create work centered on Kiku or chrysanthemums. Kiku are an important symbol within Imperial Japan and represent the changing of seasons between fall and winter and the hope within such change. Warhol created these prints using his traditional pop art style but uncharacteristically used a much smaller scale to fit within traditional Japanese homes.