Dancing at the New Carlton Café in Shanghai

In 1924 Kōka created a set of ten prints that includes images of beautiful women, landscapes, and bird-and-flower pictures. Part of the set is an unusual interior view of a modern dance hall in booming, bustling Shanghai. Dancing at the New Carlton Café in Shanghai (Odori Shanhai Nyū Karuton shoken) features thoroughly modern women in Western gowns and bobbed hairstyles. An anomaly not only in Kōka’s oeuvre but for the entire shin hanga movement, the image reflects the shifting interests and chic fashions of ‘The Roaring Twenties’ in East Asia. The print is actually an improved version of the same subject as featured in a painting he created earlier that year.