In October, a huge new photography museum is due to open in Lishui, a city of of 2.5 million in southeast China. The Lishui Photography Culture Center will have a total construction area of 34,221 square meters, of which 15,150 square meters is devoted to three floors of exhibition space. By comparison, the V&A's recently completed Photography Center in London has 1,000 square meters of dedicated space for photography, while New York's Essex Crossing International Center of Photography has just over 3,700 square meters of exhibition, education and administration space. The $44 million investment adds to China's stature as a global photo destination.

  Woodblock prints known as ukiyo-e (''the floating world'') have had a lasting effect on Western art. Their pictorial and printmaking innovations have reverberated in the works of Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, notably Monet, van Gogh and Whistler—especially the work of Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858). This artist, who was of the samurai class, is probably best known for the series, 100 Famous Views of Edo. The artist depicts seemingly rural settings; people, trees, temples, ...