Japanese prints open at the Saginaw Art Museum as the city’s tea house nears season’s end

SAGINAW, Mich. — The Saginaw Art Museum opened a show on Wednesday, Oct. 7, that spans two centuries of Japanese printmaking. “Echoes of Nature: 200 Years of Japanese Printmaking” centers on prints inspired by nature and landscape, drawn from a range of artists, periods and techniques, MLive reported. The museum lists it through Jan. 23, 2027.

The free opening night was set to begin with a tea ceremony at 4:30 p.m., with limited seats and registration required, MLive said in a Sept. 28 listing. Drop-in activities were scheduled from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., including a curator talk at 6:15 p.m. and demonstrations of origami and traditional ceramics.

There is more to see upstairs. The museum has rehung its second-level galleries, MLive reported. One traces American landscape painting across the 19th century, from the Hudson River School to American Impressionism. Another gathers artists with ties to Saginaw and the region, among them Eanger Irving Couse, Julius Rolshoven and Irving Wiles. A second new exhibition, Saginaw artist Susie McColgan’s “Into the Light,” opens Nov. 4.

The museum, at 1126 N. Michigan Ave., is open Wednesday through Saturday from noon to 5 p.m. Admission is $10 for adults and $7 for students and seniors. Children 12 and under and museum members get in free, and the museum lot has free parking, according to its visitor page.

For a second stop on the same theme, the Japanese Cultural Center, Tea House and Gardens at 527 Ezra Rust Drive is open Tuesday through Saturday from noon to 4 p.m., but only until Oct. 31, when its garden season ends, according to the center’s website. Its traditional tea ceremony, chanoyu, is held on Saturdays through October, and walk-in visitors can join a Tea & Tours visit.

The center’s calendar also lists an open house tea ceremony by the Urasenke Tanko-kai Tokushima Branch on Saturday, Oct. 24, from 1:30 to 3 p.m. After the gardens close, public tea ceremonies move to one Saturday a month, starting Nov. 14.

Updated Oct. 7, 2026: The exhibition’s Oct. 7 opening night has passed, so this story now describes it in the past tense. The show stays on view through Jan. 23, 2027.

Sources:
MLive, “Japanese printmaking exhibition opens at Saginaw Art Museum this week,” Oct. 6, 2026, https://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw-bay-city/2026/10/japanese-printmaking-exhibition-opens-at-saginaw-art-museum-this-week.html
MLive, “Saginaw Art Museum to celebrate Japanese printmaking exhibition with free evening event,” Sept. 28, 2026, https://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw-bay-city/2026/09/saginaw-art-museum-to-celebrate-japanese-printmaking-exhibition-with-free-evening-event.html
Saginaw Art Museum, “Exhibitions”, https://www.saginawartmuseum.org/exhibitions/
Saginaw Art Museum, “Visitor Info”, https://www.saginawartmuseum.org/visitor-info/
Japanese Cultural Center, Tea House and Gardens, “Upcoming Events” and home page, https://japaneseculturalcenter.org/upcoming-events/
Photo: Mary Gunn, “Saginaw Museum,” c. 1965, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain, cropped and color-corrected, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Saginaw_Museum.jpg

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