Emily Allchurch: British Museum Acquisition

The British Museum has acquired a complete set of Emily Allchurch’s ‘Tokyo Story’ for their permanent collection.

Paying homage to Utagawa Hiroshige’s (1797-1858) last great work, the ‘One Hundred Famous Views of Edo’ (1856-58), Emily’s series transposes his distinctive woodblock techniques of abstraction, vivid colouring and composition into contemporary digital-photographic collages of Tokyo.

One of the works will form part of the Museum’s exhibition ‘Hiroshige – artist of the open road’ running from 1st May – 7th September 2025. Another of Emily’s pieces from the series will be on display in their Japanese Gallery during this period.

The series of 10 prints were launched at the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation (London) in 2011, with a further two prints created by revisiting my Japanese image library during the pandemic in 2020. Over the years they have been shown extensively, including at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (USA), The Japan Society Gallery (New York), Tokaido Hiroshige Museum (Japan), Manchester Art Gallery (UK), Djanogly Art Gallery (Nottingham), and the Tyler Print Institute (Singapore).

Visit the British Museum website here | View works by Emily Allchurch here