The Japanese artist Kawanabe Kyōsai was born in 1831, toward the end of Japan’s Edo period, when society was still feudal. As a boy he apprenticed under Utagawa Kuniyoshi; he then received more artistic training in the Kanō school, where his skill won him the nickname “The Painting Demon.” But as a young man Kyōsai turned to popular art, creating caricatures that critiqued Japan’s changing social dynamics. Many consider him the heir to Hokusai, though his exuberance, and his sake drinking, fueled work that was less formal and more tipsily humorous. Some consider him Japan’s first modern artist. This exhibition, the first U.K. survey of Kyōsai since 1993, presents 80 works. —Elena Clavarino