‘SUMO: JAPAN’S BIG SPORT’ TO OPEN NOV. 10 AT MFA, BOSTON

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BOSTON, MASS. — The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, will present the exhibition “Sumo, Japan’s Big Sport,” on view November 10 through August 3 in the first floor Japanese gallery.

From its legendary prehistoric beginnings until the present day, sumo wrestling has dominated the world of traditional Japanese sport. Like Kabuki actors and noted courtesans, wrestlers were idols of the urban popular culture of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, and so appeared frequently in woodblock prints.

This exhibition features not only portraits of famous wrestlers and scenes of their greatest bouts, but also depictions of wrestlers as celebrities in everyday life, as characters in legends and Kabuki plays, and as animals or supernatural beings in fantasies, in which they enjoy wrestling just as humans do.

The museum is at 465 Huntington Avenue. For information, www.mfa.org or 617-267-9300.