Just as students begin to settle down in Eugene and fall classes commence, a new exhibit will also make its debut at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art on campus.

More than 110 modern and contemporary Japanese prints will be on display as part of the exhibit "Expanding Frontiers: The Jack and Susy Wadsworth Collection of Postwar Japanese Prints," on view from Oct. 3 to Jan. 3.

The exhibit is drawn from the generous donation of 157 modern and contemporary Japanese prints to the art museum by Jack and Susy Wadsworth in 2012.

"As a teaching museum, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art collaborates closely with faculty to ’teach from the object,’ ” said Anne Rose Kitagawa, the museum’s chief curator of Asian art and a co-curator of the new exhibit. “This particular gift does even more: It addresses the origins of this museum's collection and expands upon our historic strength in Japanese prints of the 19th and early 20th centuries."

"Expanding Frontiers" — also co-curated by Maude I. Kerns Assistant Professor of Japanese Art Akiko Walley — includes a wide variety of printmaking techniques that range from aquatint and etching to silkscreen and woodblock printing.

"This exhibition epitomizes (the museum’s) dedication to teaching," said Jill Hartz, executive director of the museum. "From conception to completion, the project was realized with the direct participation of University of Oregon faculty and students."

As part of a winter 2015 class team-taught by Walley and Kitagawa, 16 students were able to study contemporary Japanese prints, most from the Wadsworth collection. Additionally, students heard from museum professionals, art dealers and collectors about museum curatorship, exhibition planning, design and installation.

Aspects of the students’ work have been incorporated into the “Exploring Frontiers” exhibit as a fully-illustrated catalog, which includes essays from Kitagawa, Walley and Guggenheim Museum curator Alexandra Munroe.

There will be a free public reception held on Friday evening, Oct. 2, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the museum. The Wadsworths will join Kitagawa and Hartz for a conversation on collecting and a tour of the exhibit on Saturday, Oct. 3, at 2 p.m.

The exhibition is made possible by the WLS Spencer Foundation, the Coeta and Donald Barker Changing Exhibitions Endowment, the Harold and Arlene Schnitzer CARE Foundation, Arlene Schnitzer, the Oregon Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts and Jordan Schnitzer museum members.

— By Nathaniel Brown, Public Affairs Communications