In this October 6, 2025, Zoom Webinar, Dr. Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere, Research Director of the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Art and Culture at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, England, speaks on manga, a Japanese visual narrative art form that has evolved over the past century into a global phenomenon. Once referring primarily to comics and graphic novels, manga now encompasses digital media, fine art, fashion and other cultural expressions, achieving immense international reach. In Japan, manga is read across all generations and is a thriving industry, with 2023 domestic revenues reaching approximately ¥694 billion ($4.7 billion US dollars).
Over the last two decades, exhibitions of manga in Japan have typically highlighted the work of a single publisher or artist. In contrast, the British Museum’s 2019 exhibition presented original drawings (genga) by 50 artists within a historical framework. From September 25, 2025, to January 25, 2026, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco will stage The Art of Manga, an ambitious exhibition of drawings by ten leading contemporary artists. This lecture introduces manga as a compelling art form by focusing on these two major exhibitions, both curated by Dr. Rousmaniere.
Please note: Due to copyright restrictions, we must ask that the slides shown during this lecture not be “screen grabbed” and disseminated through social media. For a link to Dr. Rousmaniere’s new publication, The Art of Manga, published to coincide with the exhibition, visit: https://shop.famsf.org/collections/art-of-manga/products/art-of-manga It contains many of the images to which Dr. Rousmaniere will refer during the webinar.