Detail: The spring exhibition at Sebastian Izzard LLC Asian Art will feature surimono, the privately commissioned counterparts to the commercial Japanese woodblock prints of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Produced in small numbers for a mostly educated audience of literati, surimono were often more experimental in subject matter and treatment, and extravagant in printing technique, than commercial prints. Two artistic groups dominated surimono production: the group of artists led by Katsushika Hokusai (1760‒1849) and his school, including Totoya Hokkei (1780‒1850) and Yashima Gakutei (1786‒1868), who specialized in still-life, landscape, and illustrations of classical Chinese and Japanese literature; and the artists led by Utagawa Toyokuni (1769‒1825)—and after his death in 1825 by Utagawa Kunisada (1786‒1865)—who became known for images of the theater and its performers. Fine examples by these artists as well as other renowned painters including Kitagawa Utamaro (1756‒1806) and Kubo Shunman (1757–1820) are featured.