Kitagawa Utamaro Collection
Awabi-tori (鮑取り "Abalone divers")
Utamaro made a number of prints depicting ama divers—women whose work is to dive for shellfish or pearls—catching haliotis abalone sea snails.
PRINT1
From the series Utamakura (歌まくら, "poem[s] of the pillow") 1788, the first print depicts a pair of kappa river creatures raping an ama diver underwater.
PRINT2
The second print is 3 prints together make up the awabi-tori (ca1788-90) triptych, the scene depicts a group of women on a rocky shore watching ama divers. In a boat to the left, two women undress while another in the central print helps a swimming colleague. Another swimming ama appears in the right print. The swimmers appear small and thin, their bodies enveloped in their wet hair
PRINT3
In this awabi-tori (c1797-98) triptych depicts a group of nude ama divers finishing a day of diving for haliotis abalone sea snails. He draws them naturalistically, without elongation or other distortions that ukiyo-e artists typically employed to present ideal models of beauty. They are tall with white skin and long, stringy black hair that is wet and dangles from them.
PRINT4
Utamaro had the hexaptych Enoshima Yūryō Awabi-tori no Zu (江之嶋遊りょうあわびとりの図, "Abalone divers hunting in Enoshima") published in the c. 1791. Utamaro employs a simple line in delineating the well-proportioned bodies and the undulations of the waves
Lefthand 3 slides
Righthand 3 slides
Women Divers / Mermaids today
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