unknown (watercolorist)

early 20th century

Japanese Woman Sweeping Temple Path

watercolor on paper (laid down), signed and dated at lower left, Habu ga (painted by Habu), 1911, with artist's monogram seal, AH, 1911

image 13 5/8 by 9 3/4 in., 34.6 by 24.8 cm
frame 19 1/2 by 15 1/2 in, 49.5 by 39.5 cm

By the late Meiji period, Japanese and Western artists had mutually embraced an 'international style' that defied out-dated artistic classifications. Western artists has absorbed influence from Japan (and were just beginning to figure out Japanese methods in painting and woodblock printmaking), and Japanese artists were much further ahead in their assimilation of Western art genres and more significantly, materials and techniques. Japanese artists had the option of studying Nihonga (Japanese-style painting), or yoga (Western style painting), or both. And internationally, watercolors were increasingly accepted as a legitimate form of painting, almost (but not quite) on par with the prestige of oil paintings.

This accomplished painting, depicting a beauty sweeping the beautiful stone pathway in a temple yard with blossoming cherry trees, is rendered in a style very similar to a number of Western artists who either managed to arrange a sojourn in Japan, or were deeply inspired by Japanese imagery which had been flooding the fine and decorative arts for decades. The painting is signed in hiragana, Habu, which could be a Japanese name, and the artist's seal appears to the roman letters AH. Another watercolor of an egret has been located that is signed in somewhat stylized block roman letters and numbers that could be read Asao Habu and dated 1912 with a round (probably hand-drawn) seal that appears different than the seal on this painting. Stylistically, the painting is similar to the work of numerous artists active at that time, such as Japanese artist Hashidate Shisen (1855-1921), or British artists John Varley (1850-1933) and Ella Du Cane (1874-1943), famous for her beautiful watercolors of Japanese temples and gardens.

(inv. no. 10-4958)

SOLD

Hirezaki Eiho

1880-1968

Stepmother, Stepson (set of 8 prints)
(Ikasanu Naka)

set of eight kuchi-e (woodblock printed frontispieces); each variously signed Eiho and/or sealed Eiho, published by Kanao Bun'endo of Osaka, 1913

each approximately 8 3/8 by 5 1/2 in., 21.2 by 14 cm

Hirezaki Eiho was a well-known and prolific illustrator and painter of the Taisho and Showa periods. Born in Tokyo, he struggled with illnesses as a young man (beriberi and pleurisy) brought on by overwork as he supported his grandparents and later his own family of seven children. He studied ukiyo-e painting with Migita Toshihide (1863-1925) from 1897 which he supplemented with a period of study of Maruyama-Shijo style painting with Kawabata Gyokusho (1842-1913) from 1904. In 1901, along with the painter Kaburagi Kiyokata (1878-1972), Eiho was one of the founding members of the Ugokai (Cormorant Society), an organization which sought to promote artists that were left outside of the official government exhibitions which had become increasingly influential (and they felt unfairly) in determining the success or failure of the careers of Japanese artists. At the same time, Eiho worked as an illustrator for the newspaper Asahi Shimbun from 1901-1923; the publisher Shun'yodo from 1902-1913, and for various magazines. He illustrated numerous novels and serialized magazines for which his designs were issued as woodblock prints.

This set of kuchi-e accompanied the book form of the novel Stepmother, Stepson (Ikasanu Naka) by Yanagawa Shun'yo (1877-1918) was published in four volumes in 1913, each volume with two kuchi-e. The story revolves around Tamae, a former geisha, who leaves her husband Shunsaku and their son in order to escape the confines of married life and the scrutiny of her mother-in-law. Tamae runs away to America and remarries, and Shunsaku also remarries, this time a virtuous woman who lovingly raises their son. When Tamae's husband dies and leaves her a large inheritance, she returns to Japan only to find that she is unable to regain custody of her son, as even the boy prefers his stepmother. The first image from volume I illustrates Tamae dressed in Western clothing and seated on a train returning to her hometown. Ironically, although her character embodied excessive and problematic foreign influence, to Western eyes, the spectacles suggest more of a spinster schoolmarm than a woman of questionable morals. In the end of the story, after several setbacks, Tamae returns to the home of her former husband to beg his forgiveness.

References:
Helen Merritt, and Nanako Yamada, Woodblock Kuchi-e Prints: Reflections of Meiji Culture, 2000, pp. 95-97, color plate 4.16; pp. 195 (artist's biography, with life dates 1881-1970)
Nanako Yamada, Stepmother, Stepson: Novel by Yanagawa Shun'yo, Kuchi-e by Hirezaki Eiho, published by Kanao Bun'endo, Andon, Volume 71, Journal of the Society for Japanese Arts, 2002, p. 25-31
Nanako Yamada, Mokuhan Kuchi-e (Survey of Woodblock Kuchi-e Prints), 2006, p. 332-333
Matsumoto Shinako, Bewitching Beauty- the World of Hirezaki Eiho, the Resurrected Artist of Genius, 2009, pp. 50-51
(inv. no. 10-5459)

SOLD

attributed to Takehisa Yumeji or follower

early 20th century

Idle Days and Months (original sketchbook journal)
(Kanjitsugetsu)

ink and color on paper sketchbook journal bound in book format; with hand-brushed title on cloth label affixed to cloth-covered paper cover, Kanjitsugetsu (Idle Days and Months), titled again on the first page, Kanjitsugetsu, and dated, Taisho yonnen sangatsu yooka (Taisho 4 [1915], March 8th), and signed (likely by the book binder), Goyoan Shujin; comprised of approximately approximately 202 sumi ink and watercolor illustrations interspersed with short sections of text and poetry and divided randomly by thicker blue paper mounted with 27 tipped-in watercolor and/or pencil sketches (mostly landscapes and some possibly by a different hand); the printed label of the binding shop on last page, Shimizu Taizendo, followed by the address, Tokushima-shi, Tomita Akita-machi, san chomei (Tokushima City, Tomita Akita Town, Third District), located on the island of Shikoku, with one illustration signed Yumeji, ca. 1915

sketchbook journal 9 1/4 by 6 3/8 in., 23.4 by 16.2 cm

Takehisa Yumeji was a highly regarded writer, poet, illustrator and painter whose influence was far-reaching in his lifetime and has never waned in Japan. As a writer and poet, Yumeji felt his illustrations were an extension of his words; text and images were equally important and should compliment each other as a unified whole, striving for pictures like poetry (shi no yo na e). Yumeji's prodigious output of observational sketches of daily life were simplified representations of an idea, stripped down to their essence, much in the same way that his poetry pared a thought to only the most essential words. He was well-known for his commitment (or compulsion) to continually sketch the world around him, and his willowy, doleful beauties, known as Yumeji-shiki-bijin (Yumeji-style-beauties) are a genre unto themselves and directly linked to the wide-eyed girls populating modern manga. Yumeji wrote and illustrated his own books, provided illustrations for newspapers, journals, magazines, books, and sheet music covers, and designed his own prints and postcards. Through his production of graphic work (much of it woodblock printed) he played a role in the revival of woodblock printmaking, influencing both shin-hanga('new print') and sosaku-hanga ('creative print') artists.

This volume is a compilation of sketches, drawings and small watercolors, interspersed with poems and personal observations written in elegant calligraphy. The majority of pages have charming and sometimes poignant illustrations in the style of the illustrated book, Yumeji gashu: Haru no maki (Yumeji collection of works: Spring volume) which was published in 1909, and the follow-up publication, Yumeji gashu: natsu no maki (Yumeji collection of works, Summer volume) released in April 1910. Interestingly, the Summer volume included a long list of reviews of the Spring volume from a number of varied publications that attests to the wide range of his audience, and a fan letter from a young Onchi Koshiro (1891-1955), who would go on to become be regarded as the father of the sosaku-hanga movement.

The manuscript may be the work of Yumeji, or by a profoundly inspired follower. The first page of text opens with a reflection on life in general, and then subsequent pages have poems and vignettes of daily life. Most of the compositions depict female subjects in everyday activities and are framed by a border, usually rectangular but sometimes circular or in the shape of an open book or an arrangement of overlapping cartouches. Women are depicting going about their lives, doing chores such as cleaning, cooking, preparing coffee, hanging laundry, and using a sewing machine; or at leisure, reading, writing, playing the koto, playing the piano, going on a walk, watching the ocean; or in contemplative repose, usually facing away from our view. Children are featured affectionately, and male figures make an appearance, although primarily as accessories in the lives of the women. Several sketches relate directly to compositions in Yumeji gashu.

Many of the vignettes have poems, short texts or titles in Japanese and occasionally in English (in the same manner as Yumeji gashu). Although the calligraphy is stylized, legible titles include: Ochiba (Falling Leaves), BABYLAND, Dousou-kai (Class Reunion), Kiri no asa (Foggy Morning), Kaki no ki no shitade (Under the Persimmon Tree), Tanoshiki seikatsu (Enjoyable Daily Life), Kurasu maito (Classmate), Shiken (Exam), Sa kimino romamsu wo sakasetamae (Longing for Romance), ROOM to LET, Riso to genjatsu (Dreaming and Reality), Kyonen no haru, Koto shino fuyu (Last Year Spring, This Year Winter), Asa no umi (Morning Sea), Harukusa (Spring Grass), Hana no uta (Flower Song), Haru to Hitobito (Spring People), Yukuaki no mado (Late Autumn), Shoka no Umi (Early Summer Sea), Inugei-? (Dog Trainer), Manzoku sezaru, Manzoku seiru (Satisfied, Not Satisfied), Kamibina (Paper Hina Doll), Hitomatsu heya (Waiting Room), Hitomatsu hi (Waiting Day), BROKEN HEART & BROKEN LETTER, Kimi wo okurite (Escorting You), BROKEN HEART AND LETTER YUMEJI, Shikoku no -? (Shikoku landscape), Densha mitahito (Lady Seen on the Train), Sudamachi de mitahito (Lady Seen at Sudamachi), Yamanote de atta hito (Person Seen Uptown), Kononai hito (Childless Person), Geikijo no hooru de mitahito (Theater Hall), Ningyo no okasan (Mother of the Doll), Shiyokaze (Ocean Breeze), Yuagari (After the Bath), Banshu no betsuri (Separation in Late Spring), Naiya meru haha (Mother's Worries), Wakaba (Young Leaf), BAR de mitahito (Person Seen at the Bar), Samidare (May Rain), Tora no ewo karu kitsune no hanashi (Story of a Fox that Swaggers like a Tiger), Hana tobu (Flower Storm), Gogatsu no ame (May Rain), Obi nanadai (Seven titles of Obi), Shitamachi no oshogatsu (New Years in Shitamachi), Shinkyu onna judai (Ten modern and traditional women), and Shinkon seikatsu (Life of newlyweds).

Towards the end of the volume there are a group of sketches focused on routine activities of daily life, most identified by the time of day, such as: Seven o'clock, I can barely wake him up; Going out (dressed up); Nine o'clock in the morning, time to clean; Ten o'clock, visit from the hairdresser; One o'clock, finish lonely lunch and read the newspaper; Two o'clock, writing letters to mother in the country; Four o'clock, start to prepare for supper; Five o'clock (unlcear); and Six o'clock, dinner. The sketches continue: Otogibanashi hanasakajie (Fairytale of Hanasaka Jiji), Genji monogatari no onna (Woman's Tale of Genji), Hana no taiyori (Flower letter), Yuigahama no hito (Person at Yuigahama), Nonohana (Wildflower), Katami no yubiwa (Keepsake), and Hato no kubiwa (Dove collar). The final section is comprised of more loosely spaced calligraphy of poems and sayings, including quotes from famous individuals including the Edo period writer Jupensha Ikku (1765-1831); Chinese Tang Dynasty poet To Ho (712-770); 7th/8th century Japanese poet Kakinomoto no Hitomaro; and the so-called 'last samurai' Saigo Takamori (1828-1877).

References:
Yumeji Takehisa, Yumeji gashu: Haru no maki (Yumeji collection of works: Spring volume), 1909; Yumeji gashu: natsu no maki (Yumeji collection of works, Summer volume), 1910
Nozomi Naoi, Sabine Schenk, & Maureen de Vries, Takehisa Yumeji, 2015, pp. 13- 71; pp. 74-79, nos. 1-7 (group of Yumeji drawings)
Nozomi Naoi, Yumeji Modern: Designing the Everyday in Twentieth Century Japan, 2020, pp. 85-91
Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art, Sackler Gallery, Robert O. Muller Collection, accession no. FSC-GR-780.589.1-4 ('Yumeji gashu')
(inv. no. 10-5410)

SOLD

Takehisa Yumeji

1884-1934

Small Works by Yumeji: Complete Portfolio of 20 Prints

portfolio of twenty koban prints, the exterior portfolio wrapper with the title, Yumeji shohin hanga shu, and the publisher's information below, Kato hanga ten shuppan, and titled on the spine, Yumeji shohin hanga shu, followed by the artist, Yume Takehisa; the interior folio cover decorated with a landscape with the same title on the front, and the publisher's name on the back; with twenty koban woodblock prints of beauties, nine signed Yume; accompanied by small folded informational insert decorated with a yellow flower on the front signed Yume Takehisa ga; the interior with text by the artist and publisher, Kato Junji (active 1930-53) discussing the series and by the ukiyo-e scholar Inoue Kazuo (1914-1939) discussing his beauties, likening his painting style to poetry; published by Kato hanga kenkyuusho hakkuo (Kato print research center), dated Showa 12 (1937, November)

7 5/8 by 5 3/8 in., 19.4 by 13.5 cm

From 1900 until 1919, Yumeji designed a new postcard every month. After his sudden passing in 1934, the publisher Kato Junji compiled Yumeji's small-format prints, many from postcards but also from book illustrations and magazines and released them in sets such as this one.

Reference:
Andreas Marks, Publishers of Japanese Woodblock Prints: A Compendium, 2011, p. 219 (on Kato Junji)
Nozomi Naoi, Sabine Schenk, & Maureen de Vries, Takehisa Yumeji, 2015, p. 53, no. 3.13; pp. 152-153, illus. nos. 86, 88, 89
(inv. no. C-3229)

$3,000

Takehisa Yumeji

1884-1934

Kokusui (Elegant Nation): Vol. 2, no. 7, 1921

literary magazine with woodblock printed cover of a beauty holding a folding fan and an interior woodblock print illustrating a 'Girl of Hakata' by Yumeji, with six additional color woodblock prints including the fold-out kuchi-e (frontispiece) landscape by Tsunetomo Morita, a reproduction of an 1813 portrait of the actor Ichikawa Danjuro V in the role of a water seller by Utagawa Toyokuni I, Emma-O at the gates of hell by Chuta Ito, a portrait of a schoolgirl by Tsuruzo Ishii, and a blue landscape with a house and cypresses by Yoshiro Nagase; published by Kokusui Shuppansha, 1921

7 1/4 by 4 7/8 in., 18.4 by 12.5 cm
kuchi-e 7 1/4 by 9 1/2 in, 18.5 by 24 cm

The magazine presented a variety of poetry and verse accompanied by numerous sketches and illustrations by prominent artists of the period.

(inv. no. C-3237)

$650

Takehisa Yumeji

1884-1934

Kokusui (Elegant Nation): Vol. 2, June 1922, with Ishii Hakutei (1882-1958)

literary magazine with woodblock printed cover illustration of masked Pierrot and interior woodblock print of the tragic lovers Umekawa and Chubei by Yumeiji, and fold-out frontispiece by Ishii Hakutei; published by Kokusui shuppansha, June 1922

7 1/4 by 4 7/8 in., 18.4 by 12.5 cm
Hakutei kuchi-e 10 3/8 by 7 1/4 in, 26.5 by 18.5 cm

(inv. no. C-3236)

$650

Takehisa Yumeji

1884-1934

Princess Camellia (La Traviata sheet music)
(Kageki Tsubakihime)

sheet music with color lithograph cover designed by Yumeji and titled, Tsubaki Hime (Princess Camellia) in the upper right corner, with publisher's rabbit logo and release number in lower left corner, Senow, no. 53, the first page with the lyrics translated by Horiuchi Keizo with and titled based on the first verse, Aa sono kano hito wa (Oh, you were that person), the music credited to G. Verdi, dated on back page Taisho jusannen gogatsu nijuichika (Taisho 13 [1924] May 22nd), originally published by Seno Ongaku Shuppansha in 1917, this release in 1924

12 3/8 by 8 7/8 in., 31.3 by 22.5 cm

The Seno Ongaku Shuppansha (Senow Musical Score Publisher) was established in 1915 and Yumeji designed the covers for over 270 of their approximately 480 releases of foreign and domestic sheet music issued before they closed in the mid-1920s. The sheet music is for Violetta's aria in the Finale Act I from the opera La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901), with lyrics translated into Japanese by Horiuchi Keizo (1897-1983). The Italian libretto of La Traviata was written by Fancesco Maria Piave (1810-1876), based on the 1848 novel and 1852 play, both by Alexandre Dumas (1824-1895), La Dame aux Camelias, hence the title of the Japanese version, Tsubaki Hime (Princess Camellia).

The aria of the tragic courtesan Violetta is a particularly appropriate passage for Yumeji, whose romantic poetry and imagery frequently alluded to feelings of loneliness and solitude. He captures the famous scene which is set on a balcony with a lithe beauty regarding a deeply blushing would-be paramour whose attire and distinctive 'toothbrush' moustache suggests the 'Little Tramp' persona of Charlie Chaplin.

The title is the first line, in Italian, Violetta sings of her admirer Alfredo, 'ah fors' e lui' (Ah, perhaps he is the one), which is translated into Japanese, Aa sono kano hito wa (Oh, you were that person). The lyrics reflecting on the fleetingness of life therefore one should just revel in pleasures resonates with ukiyo-e itself, literally, 'art of the floating world.'

VIOLETTA (alone)
Ah, perhaps he is the one
whom my soul,
lonely in the tumult, loved
to imagine in secrecy!
Watchful though I never knew it,
he came here while I lay sick,
awakening a new fever,
the fever of love,
of love which is the very breath
of the universe itself -
Mysterious and noble,
both cross and ecstasy of the heart.
Folly! All is folly! This is mad delirium!
A poor woman, alone,
lost in this
crowded desert
which is known to men as Paris.
What can I hope for?
What should I do? Revel
in the whirlpool of earthly pleasures.
Revel in joy! Ah!
Forever free, I must pass
madly from joy to joy.
My life's course shall be
forever in the paths of pleasure.
Whether it be dawn or dusk,
I must always live. Ah!
Gaily in the world's gay places,
ever seeking newer joys.

ALFREDO (outdoors, under the balcony)
Love is the very breath...

VIOLETTA
Oh!

ALFREDO
...of the universe itself -

VIOLETTA
Love.

ALFREDO
Mysterious and noble,
both cross and ecstasy,
cross and ecstasy of the heart.

References:
Nozomi Naoi, Sabine Schenk, & Maureen de Vries, Takehisa Yumeji, 2015, pp. 92-93, no. 22
Nozomi Naoi, Yumeji Modern: Designing the Everyday in Twentieth Century Japan, 2020, pp. 104-106
Murashev.com (Violetta's aria English Translation)
YouTube.com for an audio recording from 1931 of the Japanese opera singer Teiko Kiwa (1902-1983) accompanied by the La Scala String Orchestra

(inv. no. C-3235)

SOLD

Takehisa Yumeji

1884-1934

The Ladies Graphic: Saint Mary, November 1924
(Fujin Gurafu: Maria Kannon)

color woodblock print illustration by Yumeji from The Ladies Graphic, vol. 1, no. 7; published by Kokusai Joho sha, November 1924

10 3/4 by 4 7/8 in., 27.3 by 12.5 cm

This woodblock printed illustration was tipped into the November 1924 issue of The Ladies Graphic magazine to accompany the story, Women Missionaries (Nyonin bateren) by Kanbara Haruo (1900-1960). The story was serialized from the first issue of The Ladies Graphic in May 1924 and focused on early Christianity in Japan.

Reference:
Nozomi Naoi, Sabine Schenk, & Maureen de Vries, Takehisa Yumeji, 2015, p. 67 (on 'Women Missionaries'); pp. 108-118, illus. no. 46a
(inv. no. C-3230)

$500

Takehisa Yumeji

1884-1934

The Ladies Graphic: Saint Mary, November 1924
(Fujin Gurafu: Maria Kannon)

color woodblock print illustration by Yumeji from The Ladies Graphic, vol. 1, no. 7; published by Kokusai Joho sha, November 1924

10 3/4 by 4 7/8 in., 27.3 by 12.5 cm

This woodblock printed illustration was tipped into the November 1924 issue of The Ladies Graphic magazine to accompany the story, Women Missionaries (Nyonin bateren) by Kanbara Haruo (1900-1960). The story was serialized from the first issue of The Ladies Graphic in May 1924 and focused on early Christianity in Japan.

Reference:
Nozomi Naoi, Sabine Schenk, & Maureen de Vries, Takehisa Yumeji, 2015, p. 67 (on 'Women Missionaries'); pp. 108-118, illus. no. 46a
(inv. no. C-3230)

$500

Takehisa Yumeji

1884-1934

The Ladies Graphic: Scattered Frozen Leaves, October 1926 (intact magazine)
(Fujin Gurafu: Soyo chiru)

color woodblock frontispiece (kuchi-e) by Yumeji with artist's tomoe seal within intact issue of The Ladies Graphic, vol. 3, no. 10; the woodblock print on the cover by Kimiko Matsuda, published by Kokusai Josho sha, October, 1926

frontispiece 7 3/8 by 7 3/8 in, 18.8 by 18.8 cm
magazine 12 3/4 by 9 5/8 in., 32.5 by 24.5 cm

The magazine cover illustration by Kimiko Matsuda (dates unknown) of an image of a winsome beauty lightly touching her coiffed hair in stark landscape with golden ginko leaves falling around her echoes Yumeji's frontispiece composition of of a beauty in profile applying make-up with 'Scattered Frozen Leaves' in the background. Yumeji adapted his design four years later as a cover for the music score Dream Woman (Yume no onna) from the series, Complete Collection of Works by Nakayama Shinpei: Folk Songs (Nakayama Shinpei sakkyaku zenshu: minyokyoku) published in 1930, and he also included it within his Collection of Prints by Yumeji (Yumeji hangashu) published around the same time.

The intact magazine offers a lively glimpse of early Showa culture through the multi-faceted lens of a lifestyle magazine. In addition to photographs and snippets related to typical celebrities, including a photograph of "the most handsome" world-famous actor Rudolf Valentino (who had died at the age of only 31 in August 1926), there are articles celebrating the achievements of Japanese women, such as the Japanese Olympic track and field athlete Hitomi Kinue (1907-1931, who had just competed as the only Japanese athlete in Sweden at the Womens World Games in August 1926 winning 2 gold, 2 silver, and 1 bronze medal). The second image after the frontispiece is a photolithograph of a painting titled 'Shinafuku' (Chinese Costume) of a woman in a Chinese robe dated 1926 and signed K. Hanihara (Hanihara Kuwayo, 1879-1936), and further in the magazine there is a photograph of the female artist holding a palette standing next to the painting in progress with a caption noting that she recently exhibited with Nika-ten (Society of Progressive Japanese Artists). In the same layout, a photo to the left of the artist illustrates the female chemist Dr. Kuroda Chika (1884-1968, the first woman in Japan to receive a Bachelor of Science), "who is known for her study of rainbows."

Numerous images of fashions illustrate both western clothing and hairstyles as well as traditional Japanese kimono including sewing patterns. Classical Japanese arts such as a feature on bonkei (tray landscapes) are represented along with articles on contemporary architecture and even a spread with sheet music. A feature on paintings includes Nihonga (Japanese-style painting) beside yoga (Western-style oil paintings), including a surprising photograph of an oil on canvas painting of a seated nude, with the live nude model seen posing just beyond the easel. The magazine balanced old and new, traditional arts and styles are presented alongside modern fashions and progressive images of women.

Reference:
Nozomi Naoi, Sabine Schenk & Maureen de Vries, Takehisa Yumeji, 2015, p. 103, no. 32a ('Dream Woman'); p. 128, no. 61 ('Scattered Frozen Leaves')
(inv. no. C-3234)

$1,100

Friedrich Capelari

1884-1950

Children at the Fair

color woodblock print with subtle goma-zuri (sesame printing) and overlapping baren-sujizuri (baren swirls) in the gradation of the lower half of the figures; with artist's monogram carved in the background block, FC and dated Tokyo 1915, and pencil signed on the bottom margin, F. Capelari Tokyo 1915, published by Watanabe Shozaburo, 1915

9 by 5 7/8 in., 22.9 by 14.9 cm

To some, the twelve Capelari prints produced by Watanabe Shozaburo in 1915 could be considered the first shin-hanga ('new prints'). Certainly, it was the first time that Watanabe successfully recruited an artist from outside the traditional Japanese master-student system. And although many of the designs and subjects resonate with classic ukiyo-e, at the same time, the modern (or Western) influences are evident. This design, however, of two children captured in the glowing light of an evening fair, is a departure from those classic themes and represents the experimental nature of their collaboration in seeking a balance between old ideas in a new format.

For this new endeavor, Watanabe used a higher quality paper that he had rarely used for his previous print productions, a financial investment indicative of his commitment to the project. And much to the chagrin of his printers, he pushed the craftsmen to go against their training to print colors smooth and evenly, and instead use the baren on its edge to create swirling patterns and allow the speckles of paper to show through the pigment. These unconventional printing techniques revealed the textures of the fine paper and emphasized the unique qualities of the woodblock printing process.

Although he was happy with his collaborations with Capelari, Watanabe needed something more 'Japanese' for both his export and domestic market. He approached another young artist, Hashiguchi Goyo (1880-1921), one of the top graduates of the Tokyo Bijutsu Gakko (Tokyo School of Fine Arts). Here was a Japanese artist who was trained in Western-style painting, who happened to be a very serious student of classical ukiyo-e (having written monographs about three important artists). Watanabe convinced Goyo to collaborate on a single print of a beauty in 1915, but apparently Goyo, trained in the Western style with emphasis on individual creativity, was not comfortable with working with a publisher (perhaps Watanabe in particular) and opted to go his own way and self-publish thereafter

This design may have been inspired by a watercolor by Mortimer Menpes, 'By the Light of the Lantern' published in his 1901 travel memoir, Japan: A Record in Colour.

References:
Amy Reigle Stephens, gen. ed., The New Wave: Twentieth-century Japanese Prints from the Robert O. Muller Collection, 1993, pp. 45-46 (on Watanabe & Capelari)
Yokohama Museum of Art, Eyes Towards Asia: Ukiyo-e Artists from Abroad, 1996, p. 69, no. 74
Koyama Shuko, Beautiful Shin-hanga: Revitalization of Ukiyo-e, Tokyo Metropolitan Edo-Tokyo Museum, 2009, pp. 265-267 (on Watanabe & Capelari)
(inv. no. 10-5401)

$7,200

Friedrich Capelari

1884-1950

Woman Before a Mirror

color woodblock print, with artist's monogram, FC, followed by Tokyo 1915, and artist's name in hiragana on the fan in the foreground, Kaperari, signed and dated in pencil on the bottom margin, F. Capelari Tokyo 1915, published by Watanabe Shozaburo in 1915

16 1/4 by 7 1/8 in., 41.2 by 18.2 cm

While the subject of a single standing beauty in an interior, particularly before a mirror, is classically Japanese, her expression is not. This beauty before the mirror actually looks a bit irritated as she glances over her shoulder. This is a foreign element. Traditional Japanese depictions of beauties are more mysterious; usually we are the unseen gaze. Here, the beauty seems well aware of our intrusion.

Although he was happy with his collaborations with Capelari, Watanabe needed something more ‘Japanese’ for both his export and domestic market. He approached another young artist, Hashiguchi Goyo (1880-1921), one of the top graduates of the Tokyo Bijutsu Gakko (Tokyo School of Fine Arts). Here was a Japanese artist who was trained in Western-style painting, who happened to be a very serious student of classical ukiyo-e (having written monographs about three important artists). Watanabe convinced Goyo to collaborate on a single print of a beauty in 1915, but apparently Goyo, trained in the Western style with emphasis on individual creativity, was not comfortable with working with a publisher (perhaps Watanabe in particular) and opted to go his own way and self-publish thereafter.

References:
Helen Merritt, Point of Contact, 1993, pp. 32-35, no. 6, and p. 63
Amy Reigle Stephens, gen. ed., The New Wave: Twentieth-century Japanese Prints from the Robert O. Muller Collection, 1993, pp. 45-56 and pp. 209-210, pl. 284
Yokohama Museum of Art, Eyes Towards Asia: Ukiyo-e Artists from Abroad, 1996, p. 67, no. 71-a
(inv. no. C-2035)

SOLD

Charles W. Bartlett

1860-1940

1st Series. India: Taj Mahal

with artist's CWB monogram in lower left corner and title cartouche beneath, TAJ MAHAL. 1916., signed in red crayon below, Charles W. Bartlett, and publisher's round Watanabe seal in lower right corner, 1916

oban yoko-e 11 1/8 by 15 5/8 in., 28.2 by 39.7 cm

Alternate titles: Taj-Mahal at Dawn; Taj Mahal at Sunrise; Taj-Mahal, Early Morning

An original mat window inscribed by the artist notes: "The Taj-Mahal. Agra. India, The Tomb of an Emperor's wife, The calm of an Indian Dawn"

Charles W. Bartlett was born in Bridport, Dorsetshire in England. In 1883, at the age of twenty-three, Bartlett applied to the Royal Academy in London, where he was accepted. Three years later he continued his training in Paris at the Académie Julian. In the late 1890s Bartlett met his second wife, Catherine (Kate) Main, who not only came from a family of means, but also was a skilled woodworker and carver. With newfound financial security, Bartlett was able to concentrate on his work even more. In addition to painting in oils and watercolors, he became interested in printmaking and started producing etchings. In 1903 he became a member of the Royal West of England Academy, and in 1908 he became one of the twenty-five founding members of the Société de la Peinture à l'Eau in Paris.

In December 1913 Bartlett and his wife commenced a three-year trip around the world. By January 1914 they were in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), then by February they were in Madura, India. The spent most of the next year and a half traveling through India and Pakistan before finally arriving in Japan in early autumn of 1915. Of all the places they visited on their journey, Taj Mahal in Agra (which they visited twice, once in March 1914 and again sometime in 1915) seemed to have the greatest impact on the artist. Bartlett produced sketches and paintings on site, and he revisted the subject several times in future prints and paintings. Surely it was more than the beauty of the shimmering structure and gardens but also the story of the mausoleum that resonated with Bartlett as well. As it is well-known that the Taj Mahal was erected as a grand memorial by a grieving husband for his beloved deceased wife, so too would Bartlett understand that loss as he was barely more than a newlywed himself in 1892 when he tragically lost his beloved first wife, Emily Frances Tate, in childbirth and their infant son only weeks later.

In 1916, Watanabe Shozaburo published a total of twenty-two Bartlett prints. He began with Indian subjects; the first six were presented in a portfolio titled 1st Series. India., with an additional four 'non-portfolio' designs in the same year, including this print.

Reference:
Richard Miles & Jennifer Saville, A Printmaker in Paradise: The Art and Life of Charles W. Bartlett, 2001, pp.14-17, 47-58; illus. p. 106, no. 8
(inv. no. 10-4966)

$3,400

Charles W. Bartlett

1860-1940

2nd Series. Japan: Negishi

color woodblock print, with artist's CWB monogram at lower left with title cartouche, NEGISHI.1916, signed below in ink Charles W. Bartlett with copyright mark, publisher's seal Watanabe on lower left margin.

oban tate-e 15 1/8 by 10 in., 38.5 by 25.4 cm

Alternate titles: Winter; and Negishi; Near Yokohama, Japan

An original mat window inscribed by the artist notes: "The folk plod heavily in the white beauty of the snow."

In the early years of their marriage, Bartlett and his wife traveled to the continent frequently, and in 1913, they commenced a three-year trip around the world. In the autumn of 1915, the Bartletts reached Japan, visiting Yokohama, Kamakura and Kyoto before finally arriving in Tokyo to meet up with Kate's great friend and confidant, the artist Elizabeth Keith (1887-1956). Keith had only been in Japan a few months by that point, but she was able to help Bartletts get settled for an extended stay in Tokyo. At some point Bartlett visited the premises of the publisher Watanabe Shozaburo (1885-1962), who was likely in the midst of finishing up his collaborations with the Austrian artist Fritz Capelari (1884-1950) prints at the time and pleased to meet another talented artist and potential creative partner. Bartlett showed Watanabe a selection of watercolor sketches from his travels which the publisher proposed converting to woodblock prints.

In 1916, Watanabe published a total of twenty-two Bartlett prints. He began with Indian subjects; the first six were presented in a portfolio titled 1st Series. India. This was followed by a portfolio of six Japanese subjects, titled 2nd Series. Japan.

References:
Julia Meech, Japonisme: Graphic Arts in the 20th Century, in The New Wave, 1993, pp. 46-47
Helen Merritt, Point of Contact, 1993, pp. 36-39; p.65, no. 16
Yokohama Museum of Art, Eyes Towards Asia: Ukiyo-e Artists from Abroad, 1996, p. 81, no. 93
Richard Miles, and Jennifer Saville, A Printmaker in Paradise: The Art and Life of Charles W. Bartlett, 2001, p. 117, no. 29
Koyama Shuko, Beautiful Shin-Hanga: Revitalization of Ukiyo-e, 2009, p. 59, no. 2-23

(inv. no. C-3047)

SOLD

Charles W. Bartlett

1860-1940

Japan Series: Kyoto

color woodblock print, the artist's CWB monogram in the composition at lower left, with the title and date cartouche, KYOTO. 1916, publisher's round seal Watanabe (Watanabe Shozaburo) at lower left corner, red circular SERIES NO. TWO seal in upper left corner, and signed in red crayon on the bottom margin, Charles. W Bartlett, ca. 1916

oban yoko-e 9 7/8/ by 15 in, 25.2 by 38 cn

Alternate title: The Bridge

An original mat window inscribed by the artist notes: "Pilgrims, peasants and Geisha girls. They cross the bridge--whither?"

Not long after Bartlett arrive in Japan in the autumn of 1915, Bartlett visited the studio of the print publisher, Watanabe Shozaburo (1885-1962), who probably would have been working on Fritz Capelari (1884-1950) prints at the time. Bartlett showed a selection of watercolor sketches from his travels which Watanabe proposed converting to woodblock prints.

In 1916, Watanabe published a total of twenty-two Bartlett prints. He began with Indian subjects; the first six were presented in a portfolio titled 1st Series. India., followed by a portfolio of six Japanese subjects, titled 2nd Series. Japan which Watanabe offered as a set within the portfolio as well as individual impressions. The red circular series seal on this print indicates it is from the early portfolio edition.

By December of the same year a selection of the prints were on view in New York City at the Goupil Galleries, recorded in The New York Times on December 11th under Art Notes (following a favorable paragraph on a group of Claude Monet's paintings offered at the Durand Ruel Galleries).

"Another group of prints are by an Englishman, Charles W. Bartlett, living in Japan and adapting the method of the Japanese print to the translation of his own vision. Several of his subjects are Japanese, and he manages to introduce a modern and personal note while keeping to the convention of the Ukiyo-e school."

References:
Helen Merritt, Point of Contact, 1993, pp. 36-39
Julia Meech, Japonisme: Graphic Arts in the 20th Century, in The New Wave, 1993, pp. 46-47; and p. 211, pl. 291
Yokohama Museum of Art, Eyes Towards Asia: Ukiyo-e Artists from Abroad, 1996, p. 82, no. 95-a
Richard Miles & Jennifer Saville, A Printmaker in Paradise: The Art and Life of Charles W. Bartlett, 2001, p. 118, no. 31
(inv. no. 10-5402)

SOLD

Charles W. Bartlett

1860-1940

2nd Series. Japan: Iwabuchi

with artist's CWB seal at lower right and signed in red-brown pencil on bottom margin, Charles W. Bartlett, the title and date cartouche above, IWABUCHI, 1916, and publisher's vertical seal Watanabe on left margin, ca. 1916

oban yoko-e 10 by 14 7/8 in., 25.4 by 37.8 cm

This print was issued in two variants, this one, and another darker variant that introduces blue-grey color in the water and more saturation of the brown in the foreground and yellow in the sky.

In Point of Contact, Merritt shares that the artist noted in his sketchbook that the red-orange color within the baskets and crates being loaded by bustling figures in the foreground represents a harvest of ripe persimmon.

References:
Julia Meech, Japonisme: Graphic Arts in the 20th Century, in The New Wave, 1993, pp. 46-47
Helen Merritt, Point of Contact, 1993, p. 62, no. 17; p. 65
Richard Miles & Jennifer Saville, A Printmaker in Paradise: The Art and Life of Charles W. Bartlett, 2001, p. 119, no. 33 (darker variant)
(inv. no. C-2040)

SOLD

Charles W. Bartlett

1860-1940

Hangchow (Junks)

pencil drawing with watercolor (and/or crayon); titled and dated in pencil in lower right corner, Hangchow 1917, and inscribed in pencil on verso, original drawing Charles Bartlett, 1917

8 1/2 by 6 1/2 in., 21.59 by 16.51 cm

In 1916, the Bartletts traveled on to China, stopping first in Shanghai where they met Percy Tate, the nephew of his late first wife. Charles Bartlett and Percy Tate then traveled together from Shanghai to Hangchow (Hangzhou). Bartlett's sketchbooks of this period contain many images of this side trip to Hangchow. Thereafter the Bartletts visited Seoul, Korea and Peking (Beijing), before arriving in Honolulu in January 1917 and eventually taking up permanent residence there. The Bartletts, however, would return to visit Japan and China in 1919 and again in 1921. Between 1919 and 1926, Watanabe would produce additional woodblock prints based on Bartlett designs, including three completed color prints of Peking.

Many of Bartlett's sketchbook drawings made during his time in China became the inspiration for later paintings on the same subjects. Some of these drawings and paintings were also turned into etchings and/or drypoints which Bartlett would usually color by hand. Given its size and date, this particular pencil drawing with watercolor or crayon would appear to have been made during or shortly after Bartlett's side trip to Hangchow with Percy Tate, and may in fact be a page removed from Bartlett's sketchbooks. A much larger ink and watercolor in the Darrel C. Karl collection entitled 'Hangchow, China' appears to be directly based on this smaller watercolor study. Bartlett's hand-colored drypoint entitled 'Junk at Hangchow' (ca. 1923-1927) in turn appears to be based on the larger watercolor, although all of the basic compositional elements of that drypoint can be found in this study.

References:
Julia Meech, Japonisme: Graphic Arts in the 20th Century, in The New Wave, 1993, pp. 46-47
Richard Miles, and Jennifer Saville, A Printmaker in Paradise: The Art and Life of Charles W. Bartlett, 2001, p. 154, no. 119 ('Junk at Hangchow' etching)
(inv. no. C-3177)

SOLD

Charles W. Bartlett

1860-1940

A Village Temple, Kashmir

with artist's monogram CWB in lower left with the title, A VILLAGE TEMPLE, KASHMIR, signed in pencil on the bottom margin, Charles W. Bartlett, published by Watanabe in 1919

oban yoko-e 11 by 15 5/8 in., 27.8 by 39.6 cm

Alternate title: A Village Temple Near the Dal Lake. Kashmir

An original mat window inscribed by the artist notes: "Peasants bring flowers to decorate the Temple. Tomorrow is a feast day."

Following the first burst of creativity and production of woodblock prints in 1916, Bartlett and Watanabe continued to work together, struggling with slow correspondences and mailing proofs and corrections back and forth between Tokyo and Hawaii. Interestingly, Bartlett's appreciation of the Japanese woodblock printing process did not extend to a focus on Japanese subjects. In 1919, Bartlett returned to Japan for a short visit which likely facilitated the completion of a new group of woodblock prints limited to Chinese and Indian subjects, including this composition.

In March of the same year, Arthur H. Hahlo & Co Galleries in New York City put on a large exhibition Bartlett's prints and paintings featuring Indian, Japanese and Hawaiian subjects which was accompanied by a catalogue. In the 1921 landmark exhibition of shin-hanga woodblock prints at the Shirokiya department store including Watanabe's entire stable of artists, foreign and Japanese, the Bartlett prints commanded prices that were ten times that of future shin-hanga leaders, Hiroshi Yoshida (1876-1950) and Ito Shinsui (1898-1972).

Reference:
Richard Miles & Jennifer Saville, A Printmaker in Paradise: The Art and Life of Charles W. Bartlett, 2001, pp. 14-17, 47-58, 68-72; illus. p. 107, no. 11
(inv. no. 10-5143)

$2,500

Charles W. Bartlett

1860-1940

Jaunpur, India, Early Morning

the title, JAUNPUR, and artist's monogram seal CWB, printed within the composition at lower right, pencil signed and with further title along the bottom margin, Charles W. Bartlett, India, published by Watanabe, ca. 1920

dai oban tate-e 15 1/2 by 10 7/8 in., 39.5 by 27.5 cm

This design was issued in three distinct variants; Midday, as illustrated in A Printmaker in Paradise with darker blue water and sky with pale yellow on the horizon and more contrasting shadows on the figures; Moonlight, characterized by deep blue overall; and this version, Early Morning with a lighter palette overall and hues of pink in the water and sky.

References:
Yokohama Museum of Art, ed., Eyes Towards Asia: Ukiyo-e Artists from Abroad (Ajiae no me gaikokujin no ukiyo-e shitachi), 1996, p. 91, no. 110 (Midday variant)
Richard Miles & Jennifer Saville, A Printmaker in Paradise: The Art and Life of Charles W. Bartlett, 2001, p. 114, no. 23 (Midday variant)

(inv. no. 10-4819)

$4,600

Charles W. Bartlett

1860-1940

Camel Drinking, Tartar Wall, Peking

watercolor on paper, signed, titled and dated at lower right, Charles W. Bartlett. 1922.Peking, 1922

9 3/4 by 14 7/8 in., 24.9 by 37.7 cm

After establishing a productive relationship with the publisher Watanabe Shozaburo in late 1915 and early 1916, Bartlett and his wife spent the remainder of 1916 continuing their travels through Korea and China before arriving in Hawaii in January of 1917. The tropical paradise agreed with the couple, and with the war raging back in England, they decided to stay. A temporary solution which became a permanent homestead. Subsequent journeys back west, to the Far East, would follow.

Bartlett returned again and again to his sketchbooks from his tours throughout Asia for source material for new print and painting compositions. An etching titled Camels Drinking, Near Peking (alternate title: Tartar Wall, Peking) issued with and without color from circa 1923-27 compares very closely with this composition. In addition, the paper used for this painting is of the same exact size and type with distinctive teeth marks along a perforated edge as found on other known Bartlett watercolors.

Reference:
Richard Miles & Jennifer Saville, A Printmaker in Paradise: The Art and Life of Charles W. Bartlett, 2001, p. 152, no. 111 (Camels Drinking, Near Peking etching)
(inv. no. 10-5061)

$5,600

Charles W. Bartlett

1860-1940

Moon Bridge at Summer Palace, Peking

watercolor on paper, with artist's monogram, CWB, ca. 1922

14 7/8 by 9 7/8 in., 37.8 by 25.1 cm

Although his academic training and the Royal Academy in London and the Académie Julian in Paris emphasized oil painting as the preeminent art form, Bartlett was most comfortable painting in watercolors, favoring an opaque type that was meant to approach the affect of an oil on canvas. Early in his career, Bartlett stuck to the script and primarily utilized watercolors as studies for larger canvases. But as he matured and found personal and financial stability, he was able to experiment more, both as a printmaker and as a painter, endeavoring to elevate prints and watercolors to achieve a higher level of appreciation as fine art.

Bartlett frequently returned again and again to his sketchbooks from his travels for source material for new print and painting compositions. As such, there are numerous references to paintings in various ledgers of Bartlett's known works that could match the subject of this watercolor, which is surely a Chinese bridge. An etching titled, Bridge in Summer Palace, Peking, I, from circa 1923-24 may be of the same bridge from a distance; and a hand-colored etching with watercolor, Bridge in Summer Palace, Peking, II, from a closer perspective is an even more convincing comparison. In addition, the paper used for this painting is of the same size and type with distinctive tear marks on one edge as other known Bartlett watercolors, including a 1922 painting depicting a Chinese subject which Bartlett signed, dated, and identified as located in Peking.

Reference:
Richard Miles & Jennifer Saville, A Printmaker in Paradise: The Art and Life of Charles W. Bartlett, 2001, p. 152, nos. 113 & 114 (etchings of Bridge in Summer Palace, Peking)
(inv. no. 10-4970)

SOLD

Elizabeth Keith

1887-1956

Lama Temple

signed in pencil at lower right, Elizabeth Keith, with 1922 date and artist's oval EK seal within the keyblock and titled at lower left, Lama Temple Peking, published by Watanabe Shozaburo, 1922

oban yoko-e 10 3/8 by 15 3/8 in., 26.5 by 38.9 cm

Elizabeth Keith was born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, but raised in Ireland. Keith had natural artistic talents but no formal art training. In 1915 she traveled to Japan to visit her sister Jessie, who had married J. W. Robertson Scott, the publisher of The New East (Shin Toyo), a monthly bilingual magazine. The trip was supposed to last a few months, but Keith was so taken by Japan she ended up staying nearly nine years. She traveled extensively using Tokyo as her home base, and became particularly fond of Korea, which she visited with Jessie for the first time in 1919. Upon their return to Tokyo, she exhibited watercolors from the trip at the Mitsukoshi department store, where she encountered the publisher Watanabe Shozaburo (1885-1962). Although they had not previously met, Keith would have been well aware of Watanabe, not only by reputation, but also because he had published the prints of her good friend, Charles W. Bartlett (1860-1940).

Miles notes that the blocks for this print (and unsold impressions) were lost in the 1923 earthquake, and quotes Keith's comments on this scene: "This is the Temple presented to the Emperor Chi'en Lung and for this reason the roofs are tiled in the royal colour. The view is of the entrance front of the central building as seen from one of the courts."

Keith returned to London in 1924, and in the following year this print was included in her first European exhibition, 'Colour-Prints of the Far East' at the Beaux Arts Gallery in Bruton Place, which was announced to great fanfare with full-page illustrations in a supplement accompanying an article in the November 21st edition of the Illustrated London News. The paper followed-up on February 20, 1926, with a second supplement of additional illustrations including this print. The enthusiastic publicity may have been what prompted a visit to the exhibition by H.I.H. Prince Yasuhito Chichibu, the brother of H.I.M. Emperor Taisho of Japan, who was a student at Oxford at the time.

References:
F.L., Eastern Art Revived by British Artist: Keith "Japanese" Colour-Prints, Illustrated London News, November 21, 1925, and Supplement, February 20, 1926
Elizabeth Keith, Eastern Windows: An Artist's Notes of Travel in Japan, Hokkaido, Korea, China, and the Philippines, 1928, p. 11-12
Richard Miles, Elizabeth Keith: The Printed Works, 1991, p. 27, no. 5
(inv. no. 10-5142)

$3,500

Elizabeth Keith

1887-1956

Street Scene, Soochow

signed with red crayon in lower right corner, Elizabeth Keith, beside artist's oval EK seal and dated 1924 below, titled in pencil on the bottom margin, Street Scene Soochow, published by Watanabe Shozaburo, 1924

oban tate-e 15 7/8 by 10 3/4 in., 40.4 by 27.4 cm

Alternate title: Street Scene, Soochow in Kiang-su

Miles quotes Keith's comments on this scene: "A street in the ancient walled city of Soochow. Here the green carrying chair and the rickshaw are blocking up most of the way. The shops are mostly open to the street and from their fronts hang the shop signs painted on coloured banners." Keith's patron and friend, Gertrude Bass Warner (1863-1951), donated a pencil and ink drawing related to this print to the Jordan Schnitzer Museum at the University of Oregan.

Keith returned to London in 1924, and in the following year this print was included in her first European exhibition, 'Colour-Prints of the Far East' at the Beaux Arts Gallery in Bruton Place, which was announced to great fanfare with full-page illustrations, including this print, in a supplement accompanying an article in the November 21st edition of the Illustrated London News. The reviewer begins with an opinion popular at the time that ukiyo-e peaked in the 18th century: "masters of that time carried colour-printing to such a high level of perfection that to this day they stand unrivalled" but that it "seemed at last as if it could find no further direction in which to develop so that towards the beginning of the nineteenth century it languished and has declined and almost died since then." Asserting that the "mantle of these masters has fallen on the shoulders of a young English artist, Miss Elizabeth Keith, who seems, partly through intuition and partly through skill, to have rediscovered their forgotten secrets...revived the lost art in our own time." Interestingly, the article does make mention of the highly skilled carvers and printers needed to produce the prints, but all the credit is given to Keith as a "born designer" who by "supplying the missing element" and her "constant supervision" achieves "the most outstanding examples of the modern revival of colour-printing in any land." Alas, no mention of her visionary publisher, Watanabe.

The paper followed-up on February 20, 1926, with a second supplement of additional illustrations. The enthusiastic publicity may have been what prompted a visit to the exhibition by H.I.H. Prince Yasuhito Chichibu, the brother of H.I.M. Emperor Taisho of Japan, who was a student at Oxford at the time.

References:
F.L., Eastern Art Revived by British Artist: Keith "Japanese" Colour-Prints, Illustrated London News, November 21, 1925, and Supplement, February 20, 1926
Elizabeth Keith, Eastern Windows: An Artist's Notes of Travel in Japan, Hokkaido, Korea, China, and the Philippines, 1928, tipped in color illustration p. 64
Malcolm C. Salaman, Masters of the Colour Print: Elizabeth Keith, The Studio, 1933, plate IV
Elizabeth Keith (1887-1856): The Orient Through Western Eyes, Exhibition of Works from the Murray Warner Collection in The Museum of Art; University of Oregon, 1974, cat. no. 1, illus. (drawing)
Richard Miles, Elizabeth Keith: The Printed Works, 1991, p. 30, no. 13
Yokohama Museum of Art, ed., Eyes Towards Asia: Ukiyo-e Artists from Abroad (Ajiae no me gaikokujin no ukiyo-e shitachi), 1996, p. 103, no. 128a
Jordan Schnitzer Museum, University of Oregan, accession nos. MWB51:K50 (print) & MWB59:K3 (drawing)
(inv. no. C-3048)

$3,000

Elizabeth Keith

1887-1956

Buddhist Priest, Kyoto, Japan

embellished with gold metallic highlights on the brocade robe and karazuri ('blind printing' or embossing) of the white strands of the flywhisk and the creped texture of the yellow robe; signed in pencil at lower right, Elizabeth Keith, pencil titled on verso, The Buddhist Priest, published by Watanabe Shozaburo, ca. 1925

dai oban tate-e 16 by 11 in., 40.5 by 28 cm

An accomplished watercolor of this subject from the Murray Warner Collection of Oriental Art (husband of Keith's devoted patron Gertrude Warner, 1863-1951) in the collection of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum at the University of Oregon demonstrates both Keith's talent as a painter, as well as the remarkable ability of Watanabe's artisans to faithfully transform her work into a stunning woodblock print.

According to Miles, the edition for this print was intended to be 100, however, he recorded fewer than 25 known impressions.

References:
Elizabeth Keith (1887-1956): The Orient Through Western Eyes, An Exhibition of Works from the Murray Warner Collection in The Museum of Art; University of Oregon (Jordan Schnitzer Museum), 1974, cat. no. 37 & 38, accession nos. MWB32:K5 & MWB51:K4 (watercolor sketch & print)
Richard Miles, Elizabeth Keith: The Printed Works, 1991, p. 58, no. 99
(inv. no. C-3197)

$4,200

Lilian May Miller

1895-1943

Morning Snow on Bamboo, Japan (A)

color woodblock print; with artist's red LM monogram in lower right corner, and signed and dated in ink at lower left, copyright-1920-by Lilian Miller, and numbered in ink the right corner, No.112, with the title stamped in green in the margin below, MORNING SNOW ON BAMBOO, JAPAN A, and stamped to the right, LILIAN MILLER Oriental Woodcuts, blocks carved by Matsumoto and printed by Nishimura Kumakichi II in 1920 (first edition)

17 5/8 by 7 1/4 in., 44.9 by 18.5 cm

Lilian May Miller was born in Japan in 1895. Her father, Ransford, worked at the American embassy in Tokyo and her mother, Lilly, taught English at the Christian mission. In 1904, at the age of nine, Lilian enrolled in the atelier of Kano Tomonobu (1843-1912), one of the last Kano school masters. Tomonobu was well-known in the tightly-knit community of expatriates: he gave private lessons to a number of foreign artists, including Emil Orlik (1870-1932), Helen Hyde (1868-1919), and briefly, Arthur Wesley Dow (1857-1922).

By 1920 she was living as the tenant of the formidable Bertha Lum, and had turned to printmaking as a way of supplementing her income. It is presumably thanks to Lum that Miller began to work with the block carver Matsumoto (who had worked for Helen Hyde) and the printer Nishimura Kumakichi II, upon whom Lum had come to rely on completely for her own print productions. Shortly thereafter there was a dramatic falling-out between the two artists; the exact cause is not known but it seemed to stem from some issues regarding artistic integrity. Interestingly, Miller also struggled with a relationship with Elizabeth Keith, who began as a friend but later developed into a rival (see Brown, Lilian Miller: An American Artist in Japan, in Impressions 27, 2006, for an untangling of these conflicts).

Miller’s early prints published in 1919-1920, such a this one, were certainly carved by Matsumoto and printed by Nishimura Kumakichi II, but at some point along the way, she learned block-carving and printing herself. After the 1923 earthquake Miller suffered near-financial ruin as well as a long period of illness. Beginning in 1927, Miller began producing self-carved and self-printed works as well as new impressions of her early prints in preparation for a tour of America in 1929-30, including a new version of this design with a mica background in 1928.

References:
Kendall H. Brown, Between Two Worlds: The Life and Art of Lilian May Miller, 1998, fig. 27 (1921 version); fig 43 (1928 version)
Kendall H. Brown, Lilian Miller: An American Artist in Japan, in Impressions 27, 2006, pp. 80-97
(inv. no. 10-5462)

$1,800

Lilian May Miller

1895-1943

Moonrise Over Ancient Gateway, Korea

color woodblock print; with artist's LM monogram in lower right corner, inscribed faintly in ink in lower left corner, copyright 1922 by, over darker ink signature, Lilian Miller, and inscribed faintly in bottom margin, Edition IV- 1928(?), blocks carved by Matsumoto and originally printed by Nishimura Kumakichi II in 1920-21; this impression likely self-printed by artist in ca. 1928

oban tate-e 14 5/8 by 9 3/8 in., 37 by 23.7 cm

Miller liked to produce hand-written notes to accompany her woodblock prints which typically emphasized and embellished on the theme of ancient cultures and traditions set in eternally beautiful and peaceful landscapes. Brown records the narrative for this composition in Between Two Worlds:

Down the length of a typical Korean village runs a broad country road, guarded on either side by tall poplars that rustle with a silken whisper in the evening breeze. At the very end of the village stands an ancient gateway, once an entrance to the palace of some powerful 'yangban,' or Governor, now a dwelling place for the flickering bat and velvet-winged moth; yet still beautiful, with iridescent hills of Korea glimpsed through its spacious archway. As the dim afterglow of the vanished sun throws tapering poplar shadows across the road, and the summer moon rises from its purple nest behind the mountains, the people of the village come from their evening bowls of rice to enjoy the cool air and hold pleasant converse with their neighbors. There is always a cool tranquility, an unhurried peace, about such Korean evenings, as if the many sleeping centuries which have passed over this picturesque land left something behind them of the mellow and age-old serenity. (p. 55)

This print was initially issued in 1920-21 when Miller was working with the professional carver Matsumoto and printer Nishimura Kumakichi II. Although the date on the bottom margin is difficult to read, it appears to be dated 1928, when Miller began printing on her own from her earlier designs and also began carving her own blocks for new works.

References:
Kendall H. Brown, Between Two Worlds: The Life and Art of Lilian May Miller, 1998, p. 55, fig. 41
(inv. no. C-3045)

$2,200

Emile A. Verpilleux

1888-1964

The River From Waterloo Bridge

color woodblock print, signed and dated in pencil, E. Verpilleux, 1923, with printer's pencil notations in the margins, 1923

14 by 18 in., 35.56 by 45.72 cm

Emile Antoine Verpilleux was born in Notting Hill, London, to a French father (of the same name) and a Scottish mother (Edith Beard Verpilleux). He was primarily raised in England but for two years in France around the age of 10. His arts education began at the Regent Street Polytechnic, and then at the age of 18 enrolled in the Académie des Beaux Arts in Antwerp. Upon his return to England three years later he worked as a magazine illustrator until he started winning commissions for book illustrations which provided the financial stability to explore his interest in printmaking. He began making prints first as a wood engraver before developing his idiosyncratic style and method of color woodblock printing that involved cutting his keyblock on the end of the grain and his color blocks plank-wise. He would use homemade wire brushes, mezzo-tint scrapers and other tool to carve and gouge the wood and printed with lithograph inks (altered for thinning and textures). Printing was achieved utilizing an Albion press on dry paper instead of a baren on damp paper.

Malcolm C. Salaman (arguably) asserts in 1919, "Mr. E. A Verpilleux owes nothing to the Japanese; their conception or the colour-print differs materially from his, which is that of creative wood engraving with the emphasis of colour as an emotional element. Those subtle nuances of tone with which he suggests light vibrating through the atmosphere are produced by no devises of printing, but are the result, artistically determined, of his graver's and gouge's work upon the wood." A counterpoint expressed in 1924 by the art critic Herbert Furst in his weighty tome, The Modern Woodcut, describes Verpilleux's work as "pursuing aims which are imitative of other media, with quite singular success...using the press, instead of the hand, for the production of his prints." before continuing on to criticize the state of colour printing in general, regardless of his being "greatly impressed with the ingenuity and assiduity displayed in many modern colour processes."

Verpilleux holds the distinction of having been the first artist to have a colored print (St. Paul's from Cheapside, 1912) hung at the Royal Academy in London. In 1927 he was selected by the prestigious The Studio magazine as a Master Printer and featured in volume III of their Masters of the Colour Print series (an honor bestowed six years later on Elizabeth Keith, 1887-1956). This luminous image of the Hungerford [Charing Cross] Railway Bridge (famously featured in a series of thirty-seven oil paintings by Claude Monet, 1840-1926) over Thames in London was reproduced as plate no. V in that publication. In 1929, The Kennedy Galleries in New York exhibited his "wood engravings in colour" which caught the attention of a reviewer from The New York Times. In addition to producing art prints, Verpilleux continued working as an illustrator, publishing several popular children's books, including "The Picture Book of Houses" which presented images of a variety of homes from differing cultures as imagined through the ages. His image for a Japanese home is a remarkable assemblage of 'Things Japanese.' The house appears to be based on the Kinkaku-ji Zen temple, perched on the edge of a lily pond with a red lacquer arched bridge near a stone lantern under blossoming cherry trees with Mount Fuji in the distance.

References:
Malcolm C. Salaman, The Woodcut in England, in, Geoffrey Holme, ed., Modern Woodcuts and Lithographs by British and French Artists, The Studio, 1919, p. 33
Herbert Furst, The Modern Woodcut, 1924, p. 96
Malcolm C. Salaman, Masters of the Colour Print: Vol. III, E. A Verpilleux, The Studio, 1927, pp. 1-6; pl. V
Ruth Green Harris, COMMENT ON ART EXHIBITIONS OF WEEK, The New York Times, November 17, 1929 (on Kennedy Galleries exhibition)
New York Times, article 31, November 24, 1929 (on Kennedy Galleries exhibition)
New York Times, Books for Children, November 22, 1931 (on The Picture Books of Houses)
(inv. no. 10-5214)

$1,600

Helene Maß

1871-1955

Forest Lake

annotated in pencil under the composition at left, Orig. Holzschnitt Handdruck (original woodcut hand-printed) and signed at right, H. Maß, and inscribed in pencil (presumably by a different hand) along bottom edge at left, Forest Lake, H. Mass (using the English version of her last name), self-carved and self printed, ca. 1920s

13 3/4 by 15 3/8 in., 35 by 39.2 cm

Helene Maß was a Berlin-based graphic artist, landscape and flower painter, and an etching and woodblock printmaker. She was born in Posen (today Trzcianka, Poland), and studied at the Prussian Academy of Arts under Paul Flickel, Ludwig Dettmann and Walter Leistikow, who influenced her work. She was a member of the Berlin Secessionists, participating in their first exhibition, as well as the Association of Berlin Female Artists (Verein der Berliner Kunstlerinnen). She was also active in the Reichsverband bildender Kunstler Deutschlands.
(inv. no. 10-3752)

SOLD

Hugo Noske

1886-1960

Wind Blown Trees

color woodblock printed on fine laid paper; signed in pencil at lower right, Noske, ca. 1925.

12 1/2 by 15 3/8 in., 31.8 by 38.9 cm

By the 1920s woodblock printmaking was quite popular in America and Europe; it had become a favorite medium for many artists as the mysteries of the process were unraveled in several publications over the previous two decades. Artists found new ways to embrace the medium and exploit its possibilities. By this time, much like in Japan, there were some artists who aimed to print in a manner that mimicked the refined Japanese style (in subject and technique), while others (many more), printed in a loose, expressionistic way.

There is little known biographical information on Noske. He was a member of the Austrian Werkbund in Vienna, the Society of Original Graver-Printers in Colour in London, and was mentioned in a 1928 issue of The Studio magazine as an enamel painter and a fine artist. He was married to Sophie Noske-Sander (1884-1958) who was also an artist who worked in a similar style and served for a period in the 1930s as the director of the Austrian Association of Women Artists (Verinigung bildender Kunstlerinnen Osterreichs) in Vienna.

Noske produced woodblock prints in a painterly style, primarily of floral still life subjects. Although Noske did not number his prints, self-carved and self-printed works tended to be issued in relatively small editions due to the time-consuming nature of the production process. This evocative landscape is a bold departure from Noske's typical oeuvre and arguably one of his most successful compositions.

Both Hugo and his wife Sophie had prints included in the 1927 and 1928 annual exhibitions organized by the Society of Graver-Printers in Colour in London.

Reference:
Barbara J. Thompson, The International Block Print Renaissance, Then and Now: Block Prints in Wichita, Kansas, A Centennial Celebration, 2022, pp. 198-199
(inv. no. 10-2805)

SOLD

John Edgar Platt

1886-1967

The Irish Lady, Land's End

color woodblock print, signed in pencil at lower right, John Platt, numbered and titled at left, 84/100 THE IRISH LADY, LAND'S END, self-carved and self-printed by the artist, from a projected edition of 100 (78 recorded, some numbered out of 150), ca. February 1922

9 1/4 by 11 3/4 in., 23.4 by 30 cm

As a student, John Edgar Platt intended to study engineering at Manchester University, but while recuperating from a minor accident he briefly attended Margate Art School in Kent where a tutor recognized his drawing skills and convinced him to transfer to architecture. This half step towards a more creative profession eventually led Platt to seek a career in the arts. He attended Newcastle, Margate and Leek Schools of Art before being awarded a scholarship in 1905 to the Royal College of Art in London where he won prizes in design, painting, architecture and modeling. His interests were quite broad, and he paid particular attention to the production of decorative arts, studying a great variety of crafts including stained glass, tapestries, books, posters, metalwork, jewelry, and woodcarving.

In 1910 Platt took a teaching position at Leek College of Art, which he managed while keeping up with mural and industrial design commissions and starting a family. He served in the First World War from 1914-1918, and upon his return took short-term positions at the Harrogate and Derby School of Arts. From 1920-1923 he was the part-time head of the Department of Applied Art at Edinburgh College of Art, where Mabel A. Royds was also teaching, and Frank Morley Fletcher (1866-1949) was the Director. Platt had learned woodblock printmaking from Allan Seaby (1867-1953), a student of Morley Fletcher's. Fletcher was impressed enough with Platt to write an article about his prints for The Studio magazine, The Work of John Platt, published in November 1925.

Platt's inclination towards architecture and engineering made him particularly keen on mastering the technical challenges of any given field. This sensitivity is evident in the production of his woodblock prints. Unlike many artists who carved and printed their own works, Platt's woodblock prints are remarkably skillfully executed: a technical feat which is so very often accomplished by the collaboration of an artist's eye towards the composition and color, and the printer's skilled hand (for example with the prints of Charles W. Bartlett). In Platt, both the artist and the artisan resided in one man.

References:
Geoffrey Holme, ed., Modern Woodcuts and Lithographs by British and French Artists, 1919, p. 32
Frank Morley Fletcher, The Work of John Platt, The Studio, vol. 90, no. 392, November 1925, illus. p. 297
Hilary Chapman, A Catalogue of the Colour Woodcuts of John Edgar Platt, 1999, p. 23, no. 9
Chazen Museum of Art, Color Woodcut International, 2006, p. 76, no. 20
(inv. no. 10-2930)

$2,000

John Edgar Platt

1886-1967

Red Chestnut no. 1

color woodblock print, pencil numbered and title in the bottom margin at left, 18/150 RED CHESTNUT, and signed at right, John Platt, ca. 1927

16 3/8 by 9 5/8 in., 41.7 by 24.3 cm

From 1923-1929 Platt was the Principal at Leicester School of Art, where he made it a priority to offer an education in art with real-world applications in various industries. He also invited Urushibara Yoshijiro (Mokuchu, 1888-1953), to demonstrate Japanese-style printmaking. Urushibara was a pivotal figure in Britain at the time; he had been sent to London to demonstrate woodblock printing at the Anglo-Japanese Exhibition in 1910 and managed to stay by taking a position at the British Museum mounting and restoring Asian paintings. Urushibara (who also taught Walter J. Phillips), Fletcher and Platt, are credited with advancing the technical proficiency of woodblock printmakers in Britain, and by extension, to Europe and America. Their collective efforts were crucial to the development of the international color woodblock printing.

This composition (arguably one of Platt's finest), with dramatic foreshortening of the chestnut leaves providing stealthy cover for a black cat preparing to pounce from his perch on the broken tree branch, calls to mind another composition of a stalking cat by the Japanese artist Takahashi Shotei (Hiroaki, 1871-1945), Black Cat and Tomato Plant, published by Fusui Gabo in a limited edition of 100 impressions in 1931, four years after Platt exhibited the print at the 12th annual exhibition for the Society of Graver-Printers in London.

According to Hilary Chapman, the design was issued in two version, the first (no. 1) printed in February 1927 in an edition of 68 with blue sky, clouds, treetops and telephone poles; and the second (no. 2) printed in an edition of 150 without the blue or any details in the background. This impression, numbered from an edition of 150, with brilliant blue sky the telephone poles, appears to be in all details the same as the first version. Perhaps the impression lacking background details illustrated in the catalogue raisonné is not a second state but a variant impression.

The Victoria & Albert Musuem in London has the four-double sided woodblocks for this print in their collection. Each side of one block was used for two different colors, to complete the design required 23 different impressions.

References:
Geoffrey Holme, ed., Modern Woodcuts and Lithographs by British and French Artists, 1919, p. 32
Hilary Chapman, A Catalogue of the Colour Woodcuts of John Edgar Platt, 1999, no. 14
(inv. no. 10-5515)

$5,800

John Edgar Platt

1886-1967

Sailing Trawler (artist's annotated proof)

color woodblock print mounted to illustration board, with extensive artist's notations, pencil signed at lower left, I...John Platt, 1955; ca. 1940-1955

print 9 1/2 by 15 3/8 in, 24 by 39 cm
mounted 12 3/8 by 17 1/8 in., 31.5 by 43.5 cm

According to Hilary Chapman, Platt produced this print in two versions and under three different titles. In one version, the colors were limited to grey, blue, dark grey and the keyblock, in the second version he introduced a hue of orange in the rainbow, as is found with this impression. Platt identified both color variants as '1st state' in his notes. He first began working with this design titled 'BRIXHAM TRAWLER (Sailing Trawler)' in March and April of 1940. He revisited the design in 1947 and worked on a second state retitled the print 'Devon Trawler with Rainbow.' Chapman notes only four impressions were recorded of the first state and three impressions of the second state.

The pencil notations on this impression, which Platt signed and dated much later in 1955, records some of Platt's belabored production details, and frustrations. Along the right margin below one of the print titles, SAILING TRAWLER, he writes (crosses out and partially erases): This shadow should not reach margin of picture, and all the fore part of vessel and should be less...(...be seen only through...rain). On the bottom left margin beside one of two arrows he notes, 'Thin.' And on the top edge of the mounting he records his unsuccessful efforts with this design and the Royal Academy: "Brixham Trawler" submitted to RA 1940 "regret unable" notice received. 1947 "Devon Trawler" Rejected. On the back of the board he inscribed his name and address: John Platt 50, Park Avenue, Eastbourne, the title SAILING TRAWLER three times, and perhaps we can appreciate his exasperation with this particular design conveyed with a final note: various attempts have been made, filed under various titles!!!

This artist's proof from the estate of the prominent sosaku-hanga ('creative print') artist Jun'ichiro Sekino offers a fascinating indication of multi-directional and international influences. While Platt was a late addition (his career delayed by serving in World War I) to the first generation of artists who helped advance woodblock printing outside of Japan, Sekino was a part of the second generation of artists who reacquired, in a sense, Japanese woodblock printmaking, embracing the previously foreign concept of 'artist as creator' and self-carving and self-printing their works.

Provenance:
The Estate of Jun'ichiro Sekino (woodblock print artist, 1914-1988)

References:
Geoffrey Holme, ed., Modern Woodcuts and Lithographs by British and French Artists, 1919, p. 32
Hilary Chapman, A Catalogue of the Colour Woodcuts of John Edgar Platt, 1999, p. 35, no. 34
(inv. no. 10-3736)

SOLD

Cyrus L. Baldridge

1889-1977

Turn to the East Portfolio: Peking (China Gate)

color woodblock print, pencil numbered, signed and titled on the bottom margin, No. 120 C. Leroy Baldridge Peking '25, with publisher's round seal Watanabe, 1925; together with portfolio labeled, TURN TO THE EAST, CAROLINE SINGER AND C. LE ROY BALDRIDGE, MINTON, BALCH & COMPANY..New York, hand numbered No. 120 with eight photo offset color lithographs of Baldridge paintings and sketches of Chinese subjects, ca. 1926

woodblock print 10 3/8 by 15 3/8 in., 26.5 by 39 cm
portfolio 16 by 11 in., 40.5 by 28 cm

Alternate title: P'ailou on Moat, Peking
A pailou or paifang, or archway, is a traditional Chinese gateway with one, three, or five openings, erected at the entrance to a palace, tomb, or processional way.

Cyrus Le Roy was an illustrator, author, and artist-adventurer. Born in 1889 in upstate New York, Baldridge was raised primarily on the road with his mother who left his father and became a traveling saleswoman, instilling in her son strong spirit of individualism and lifelong wanderlust. At the age of 10 he was accepted as the youngest student at Frank Holme's School of Illustration in Chicago, and he was admitted to the University of Chicago and graduated in 1911. While looking for work as an illustrator he worked in Chicago stockyards and became an excellent rider training in the Illinois National Guard Calvary and worked as a cow hand on the 6666 Ranch in Texas for a summer. During World War I worked as a war correspondent and illustrator, crossing through war zones on bicycle and horseback until he ran out of funds and returned to Chicago. The National Guard called him up in 1916 to repulse Pancho Villa at the Mexican-American border, and in 1917 he joined the French Army as a stretcher bearer. He went to Mexico and the fronts in Europe as an idealistic youth, but the horrors of war left him deeply disillusioned.

In 1920 Baldridge met the Caroline Singer (1888-1963) who shared his love of travel and adventure. Together they toured Africa, India, Asia and the Middle East and published travel memoirs written by Singer and illustrated by Baldridge that were highly regarded for their respectful portrayals of the cultures and for the beautiful illustrations. There were long periods in China and Japan in the 1920s, including a period collaborating with Watanabe Shozaburo (1885-1962), the preeminent publisher of shin-hanga woodblock prints. Watanabe produced six Baldridge woodblock prints, included the one accompanying this portfolio which was issued around the same time as their co-authored book, A Turn to the East, By Two Who Seek Here to Intimate the Richness of Their Adventure, published by the same imprint as the portfolio, Minton, Balch & Company, in 1926.

References:
Amy Reigle Stephens, gen. ed., The New Wave: Twentieth-century Japanese Prints from the Robert O. Muller Collection, 1993, p. 217, no. 305
Helen Merritt, Point of Contact, 1993, p. 68, no. 28
Barbara J. Thompson, The International Block Print Renaissance, Then and Now: Block Prints in Wichita, Kansas, A Centennial Celebration, 2022, p. 269 (color illus. 'Turn to the East')
(inv. no. 10-5506)

$900

Agnes Reeve

1896-1984

Broadcasting House (BBC Building) London

color woodblock print; numbered in margin at left, 10, and signed to the right, areeve, ca. 1932

13 5/8 by 9 5/8 in., 34.7 by 24.6 cm

Born in London, Agnes Reeve (maiden name Ferard), studied art from a young age. She attended drawing classes first at the Academy School and later at the Slade School, briefly, before her parents discovered the drawing classes offered live nude models. While attending the Byam Shaw School of Art, an independent art school, Agnes became interested in printmaking, initially color woodblock printing. Agnes married Captain Norman Reeve in 1922 and their first son Tim arrived in 1923 (a second son Michael joined the family fourteen years later). After a period abroad during which the Reeves lived in Germany and in India, they returned to England and settled on Bramerton Street in Chelsea. Agnes joined the Chelsea Art Society and began producing linocuts featuring locations in London and Suffolk. She exhibited with the Chelsea Art Society and the Federation of British Artists and won the Stock Exchange prize for one of her linocuts. In the year of her passing there was an exhibition of her work "Chelsea & London, Agnes Reeve 1896-1984" at the Chelsea Library in the Town Hall with sale proceeds donated to the Agnes Reeve Memorial Fund for Artists which underwrites a coveted prize in her name prize awarded annually by the Chelsea Art Society to the creator of the best painting featuring London.

Reeve produced both woodblock and linocut prints, in this case the pigment appears to be water-based and the application indicates that this is a color woodblock print, which corresponds to the understanding that she moved into linocut printing after the Second World War. Reeve prints in any format rarely surface on the market as the editions were quite small, for example, a recorded impression of 'Piccadilly Circus' is numbered from an edition of thirty, and one of 'Hyde Park Corner' is numbered from an edition of only ten, as may be the case with this composition.

The subject of this print is the BBC Broadcasting House, an iconic example of art deco architecture which was designed by George Valentine S. Myer (George Val Myer, 1883-1959). Construction began in 1928 and was completed in 1932.

References:
Chelsea & London: Agnes Reeve, 1896-1984, Chelsea Library, Chelsea Town Hall, November 19 - 25, 1984
Government Art Collection, artcollection.culture.gov.uk, accession no. 12681, 'Hyde Park Corner'
(inv. no. C-3367)

SOLD

Elizabeth Keith

1887-1956

Chinese Lady, Peking

embellished with silver mica on her robe; signed in pencil at lower right Elizabeth Keith, and numbered '17' in the lower right corner, numbered, titled and dated in pencil on verso, (7) Chinese Lady, Peking, 1934

oban tate-e 14 3/8 by 9 3/8 in., 36.6 by 23.7 cm

The subject of this print presents a fascinating combination of visual cues suggesting the chic sophistication of the woman depicted. The smiling beauty, her hair cropped and crimped in the style of a moga ('modern girl'), wears a 'mandarin gown' (cheongsam or qipao) of white and ice blue brocade embellished with mica. While the setting is decorated with traditional Chinese furnishings including a carpet and a large Chinese painting depicting female immortals in the background, her close-fitting dress is of a type that was popularized in Shanghai in the 1920s and 1930s and represents the height of modern fashion. Although she is seated demurely on a Chinese-style chair with her feet tucked back and resting on a matching footstool, the side-split dress naturally falls open past her knee to show off her Western-style black mid-heel shoes with ankle straps. She completes the ensemble with delicate pearl drop earrings and a silver wristwatch.

Miles theorizes that this exceedingly rare portrait might have been intended as a gift to the sitter's family as it was apparently produced in an edition of less than 25 impressions and never reprinted.

References:
Richard Miles, Elizabeth Keith: The Printed Works, 1991, p. 34, no. 27 (with erroneous alternate title of Doshisha Girl)
(inv. no. 10-4993)

SOLD

Elizabeth Keith

1887-1956

Manchu Lady Process Set

accordion album with 65 printed sheets; opening with a keyblock proof on the first leaf numbered 1, followed by 32 double-page spreads demonstrating the printing process with a new color block printed on a blank sheet on the right and the progression shown on a print on the left, ending with a completed print on the last page numbered 33; the album with brocade front and back covers and protected within a beige chitsu wrapper with bone clasps; assembled by a printer from the publishing house of Watanabe, ca 1937

album 18 5/8 by 12 3/4 in., 47.2 by 32.3 cm

An index card (apparently an exhibition label) affixed to the reverse side (and upside down) of the keyblock page of the album leaf describes the origins of this album:

Manchu Lady
33 Woodblocks were made to construct this portfolio THIS FINE EXAMPLE OF THE TECHNIQUE USED IN PRINTING THE WOODBLOCK PRINTS BY ELIZABETH KEITH WAS PRESENTED TO THE ARTIST BY A JAPANESE PRINTER AS A GIFT AND MARK OF DISTINCTION JUST BEFORE MISS KEITH and HER SISTER JESSIE LEFT FOR ENGLAND AFTER MANY YEARS IN THE FAR EAST.
NOT FOR SALE

Miles notes that while this print was originally produced in 1925, Watanabe reissued it in 1936. He also describes a very similar album which was "presented to the artist by her artisans when she left Japan in 1937, and is now in the Warner collection." Gertrude Bass Warner (1863-1951) was the founder of the University of Oregon Museum of Art (now the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art). The museum included the album in their 1974 exhibition of Keith's work, The Orient Through Western Eyes. In the accompanying catalogue, the museum Director, Richard C. Paulin describes the Manchu Lady set as representing the "pinnacle of the woodblock-artist's crafts" and the Registrar, Barbara S. Zentner, notes that Keith gifted the album to Warner in order to make "these unique works available to help instruct students in the Japanese tradition of printing technique." Although Keith signed the finished print in the Warner album (presumably when she gifted it to her great patron), it appears to represent the same progression of printings and mounted in the same manner as this example, within a brown chitsu outer wrapper.

References:
Elizabeth Keith (1887-1956): The Orient Through Western Eyes, An Exhibition of Works from the Murray Warner Collection in The Museum of Art; University of Oregon, 1974, cat. nos. 11 & 12, accession no. MWB50:K3, illus.
Richard Miles, Elizabeth Keith: The Printed Works, 1991, p. 31, no. 18
University of Oregon, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Murray Warner Collection of Oriental Art (Gertrude Bass Warner, donor), ID no. MWB50:K3

(inv. no. 10-5418)

SOLD

Elizabeth Keith

1887-1956

A Country Scholar

signed in pencil below the matrix, Elizabeth Keith, a very scarce print, ca. 1938

19 3/8 by 13 5/8 in., 49.2 by 34.7 cm

After her first period of residency in Japan that lasted nearly nine years, Keith returned to Britain in 1924 where she began to learn color etching techniques. At the suggestion of her London agent with the Beaux Arts Gallery, in 1927 Keith went to France to study with a master engraver in etching. Feeling restless, Keith was back in Asia from 1929 to 1932, where her etchings featuring Korean subjects sold particularly well. Her final trip to Japan was in 1934/35, but the political climate was increasingly problematic, derailing her plans to travel through Korea and China in order to accumulate new material for future projects.

Keith returned to England in 1936 and from 1938 focused on producing a series of large color etchings of Korean subjects, a medium at which she now excelled, in spite of deploring the hard labor it required. The aquatint application on her colored etchings shimmer with saturation, one could imagine the long hours she devoted to working with Watanabe's artisans must have informed her printer's eye. Indeed, in 1933 the prestigious The Studio magazine selected Keith as their Print Master of the Year and published her work in their ongoing Masters of the Colour Print series. Further recognition came with a series of successful exhibitions in the United States, topped off by an exciting endorsement in 1937 when The Queen and The Queen Mother visited an exhibition of Keith's work at the Beaux Arts Gallery in London.

In 1946 Keith and her sister Elspet published an illustrated book, Old Korea: Land of Morning Calm. The collaboration presented aspects of traditional Korean life with text written by Elspet accompanied Keith's color etchings, including this print. Elizabeth waxes nostalgically about the subject: "The scholar is from Wonsan. His classic costume goes back in style 800 years, and he is wearing an ancient style of cap. the staff he holds goes with the old-style cosume. It has a white jade knob which its owner carefully kept in view. The cord at my sitter's waist was of carmine silk flowing over the robe, which was a delicate shade of pale blue with a black binding, making a delightful contrast. ...It is a wonderful experience to come face to face with an aged Korean scholar. He has a look of breeding, self-discipline, and sweet gentleness, and his manner is gravely courteous. He seems to be in touch with some region of peace remove from the world of to-day."

References:
Elizabeth Keith & E.K. Robertson Scott, Old Korea: Land of Morning Calm, 1946, p. 56 (color plate), p. 58 (description)
Elizabeth Keith (1887-1956): The Orient Through Western Eyes, An Exhibition of Works from the Murray Warner Collection in The Museum of Art; University of Oregon, 1974, cat. no. 50
Richard Miles, Elizabeth Keith: The Printed Works, 1991, p. 49, no. 70 (color etching of similar figure)
Dongho Chun, Selling East Asia in Colour: Elizabeth Keith and Korea, ResearchGate, May 2020
Jordan Schnitzer Museum, University of Oregan, accession no. MWB53:K1
(inv. no. 10-5141)

$3,500

Elizabeth Keith

1887-1956

Chinese Matriarch

signed in pencil below the matrix, Elizabeth Keith, and titled in pencil on verso, "Chinese Matriarch," from a small edition of less than 25, ca. 1934

17 3/8 by 13 3/4 in., 44.1 by 34.8 cm

Alternate title: Soochow Matriarch

Richard Miles notes that Keith also produced a watercolor of this subject which was based on a sketch from 1919. He identifies the figure as a Chinese Buddhist nun posing in "unfamiliar brocade robes" and asserts that the print is one of Keith's greatest images.

References:
Richard Miles, Elizabeth Keith: The Printed Works, 1991, pp. 12-13, color illus., p. 35, no. 28
Yokohama Museum of Art, ed., Eyes Towards Asia: Ukiyo-e Artists from Abroad (Ajiae no me gaikokujin no ukiyo-e shitachi), 1996, p. 111, no. 145

(inv. no. 10-5140)

SOLD

Elyse Ashe Lord

1885-1971

Spring (Chinese Beauty)

colored etching, signed in pencil below the image to the right, Elyse Ashe Lord, and numbered at left, 71/75, ca. 1920-30s

8 5/8 by 9 in., 21.91 by 22.86 cm

Elyse Ashe Lord was born in Elise Muller 1885 (not 1895 or 1900 previously thought). Details regarding her early life are unclear, but it is likely when she married the Reverend Thomas Ashe Lord she opted to take his middle and last name as her own and change the year of her birth in an effort to obscure her German parentage. She attended Heatherleys School of Art in Chelsea, London at some point prior to the First World War. From 1915 to 1921, Lord primarily produced paintings, and apparently held her first exhibition of watercolors in 1919 (at an unknown venue), and in November 1921 she exhibited paintings at the Brook Street Gallery in London. The following year she became a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, and her first color prints were exhibited at the Fine Arts Society on Bond Street in London in the Spring of 1923.

Initially, Lord self-published drypoint etchings colored by hand or aquatints. Later she developed a process using the drypoint plate as though it were a keyblock and then color was applied with woodblock printing. Lord worked with professional publishers but would supervise the printing of her plates. From 1928 to 1931, Lord's prints were published by Alex. Reid and Lefevre; from 1931 to 1933, they were published by Walter Bull and Sanders, Ltd., and thereafter by H.C. Dickins. She was remarkably prolific, it is estimated that she issued at least 350, perhaps 400 prints. In 1927, The Studio Magazine featured Lord in their first volume of the Masters of the Colour Print book series. She was a member of the Society of Graver-Printers in Colour, and she exhibited her prints and paintings in the U.K. at the Royal Academy, the Royal Cambrian Academy, the Royal Scottish Academy, the Royal Society of Artists (Birmingham), the Walker Gallery (Liverpool), the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, the Goupil Gallery, the Leferve Gallery, and the Redfern Gallery, among others. She won a silver medal at the Paris Salon, exhibited with the Chicago Society of Etchers and was represented in the United States by Arthur Ackermann & Sons on 57th Street in New York.

References:
Malcolm C. Salaman, Masters of the Colour Print: Vol. I, Elyse Lord, The Studio, 1927
Darrel C. Karl, Asian Art Deco #4A: The Musician Prints of Elyse Ashe Lord, Eastern Impressions, easternimp.blogspot.com, May 20, 2017 (biography excerpt)
(inv. no. 10-5206)

$500

Elyse Ashe Lord

1885-1971

Camellias

color aquatint and drypoint etching with additional colors applied with woodblocks, signed in pencil below the image to the right, Elyse Ashe Lord, and numbered at left, 40/75, ca. 1920-30s

8 5/8 by 9 in., 21.91 by 22.86 cm

Elyse Ashe Lord was born in Elise Muller 1885 (not 1895 or 1900 previously thought). Details regarding her early life are unclear, but it is likely when she married the Reverend Thomas Ashe Lord she opted to take his middle and last name as her own and change the year of her birth in an effort to obscure her German parentage. She attended Heatherleys School of Art in Chelsea, London at some point prior to the First World War. From 1915 to 1921, Lord primarily produced paintings, and apparently held her first exhibition of watercolors in 1919 (at an unknown venue), and in November 1921 she exhibited paintings at the Brook Street Gallery in London. The following year she became a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, and her first color prints were exhibited at the Fine Arts Society on Bond Street in London in the Spring of 1923.

Initially, Lord self-published drypoint etchings colored by hand or aquatints. Later she developed a process using the drypoint plate as though it were a keyblock and then color was applied with woodblock printing. Lord worked with professional publishers but would supervise the printing of her plates. From 1928 to 1931, Lord's prints were published by Alex. Reid and Lefevre; from 1931 to 1933, they were published by Walter Bull and Sanders, Ltd., and thereafter by H.C. Dickins. She was remarkably prolific, it is estimated that she issued at least 350, perhaps 400 prints. In 1927, The Studio Magazine featured Lord in their first volume of the Masters of the Colour Print book series. She was a member of the Society of Graver-Printers in Colour, and she exhibited her prints and paintings in the U.K. at the Royal Academy, the Royal Cambrian Academy, the Royal Scottish Academy, the Royal Society of Artists (Birmingham), the Walker Gallery (Liverpool), the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, the Goupil Gallery, the Leferve Gallery, and the Redfern Gallery, among others. She won a silver medal at the Paris Salon, exhibited with the Chicago Society of Etchers and was represented in the United States by Arthur Ackermann & Sons on 57th Street in New York.

References:
Malcolm C. Salaman, Masters of the Colour Print: Vol. I, Elyse Lord, The Studio, 1927
Darrel C. Karl, Asian Art Deco #4A: The Musician Prints of Elyse Ashe Lord, Eastern Impressions, easternimp.blogspot.com, May 20, 2017 (biography excerpt)
(inv. no. 10-5206)

$500

Dorsey Potter Tyson

1891-1969

Snow Maid

color etching, with print title and artist's name highly-stylized in square seal-form cartouches at upper left, THE SNOW MAID (left column), DO RSEY POTTER TYSON(right column), signed and dated on the plate at lower left, D.P.Tyson -29 with artist's seal-form monogram, DTP, signed and numbered in pencil below the matrix DPTyson at right, and Temp. [template?] 6/100 at left, with notations and title along the bottom edge, P.A.G #6, Snow Maid, 1929

oban tate-e 14 3/8 by 11 in., 36.4 by 27.9 cm

Baltimore native Dorsey Potter Tyson seems to have been an accidental artist, or perhaps a late bloomer who didn't (or couldn't) explore his creative impulses until well into his thirties. Although an excellent draftsman, there is no record if he ever had any formal training at an art school or with a professional artist. His academic background indicates that he studied law, but it is unknown if he ever sat for the bar. As a young man he worked as a clerk at a trust company and later at a brokerage firm, bonds salesman, and banker in New York City and in Baltimore. His foray into printmaking is first recorded in 1926 with an ex libris etching for a Baltimorean named William E. Bauer. Beginning in 1928, Tyson began producing Asian-themed art deco-styled colored etchings, usually of Chinese subjects.

While Tyson was clearly stylistically influenced by the color etchings of Elyse Ashe Lord (1885-1971), his standard technique for producing his colored etchings was rather unusual. They were not hand colored, as Charles W. Bartlett (1860-1940) etchings were. Their colors were also not applied by woodblocks, the method often employed by Elyse Lord, nor were these prints mezzotints or aquatints. Tyson would print using a combination of etching and color monotype printing. The etching plate would be inked as normal with black ink with the excess wiped away from the plate surface, next, thick inks were applied to the plate using a brush in all of the colored areas at once, then the proof was printed with only one pull through the press. It was a time-consuming process, and the result could almost be regarded as an etching monotype as each impression had uniquely applied color.

Tyson's stylish art deco prints appealed to the same market as that of Elyse Ashe Lord, which was primarily in England. Both artists, however, were represented in New York by Arthur Ackerman & Sons, a gallery that promoted itself as an "Establishment for the Sale of Sporting Prints, Drawings & Paintings" cultivating an Anglophile clientele.

Reference:
Darrel C. Karl, Asian Art Deco #1: Dorsey Potter Tyson, Eastern Impressions, easternimp.blogspot.com, February 25, 2016 (biography and printing process)
(inv. no. 10-5476)

SOLD

Anton Schutz

1894-1977

Sacred Bridge of Nikko

etching, signed in pencil, A. Schutz, printer's notations and title inscribed in pencil on the bottom margin, 562 Sacred Bridge of Nikko, ca. 1929

image 8 7/8 by 11 3/4 in., 22.5 by 30 cm
sheet 14 by 18 7/9 in., 35.5 by 47.8 cm

Born in Berndorf, Rhineland Germany in 1894, Anton Friedrich Joseph Schutz enrolled at the University of Munich in 1912 before serving in the German army on the Western and Eastern fronts from 1914-1918. After the war, he graduated from the University of Munich with a degree in architecture and then was admitted to the Royal Academy of Fine Art in 1919 where he completed a degree in Mechanical Engineering and Architecture in 1920. He became well-known for his etchings of German landscapes and cityscapes before immigrating in 1924 to the United States where he settled in the New York and worked as an assistant to the prominent etcher and lithographer, Joseph Pennell (1857-1926), at the Art Students League. In the same year as his arrival, Schutz held his first solo exhibition at the Anderson Gallery. The following year he founded the New York Graphic Society (which would become the world's largest publisher of fine art reproductions and was acquired by Time-Life Books in 1966) and landed commissions from the US chamber of Commerce to produce 12 etchings celebrating the 300th anniversary of the founding of New Amsterdam as well as a series of etchings for the New York Times Magazine. More major commissions followed; in 1928 the 14th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica published 40 Schutz etchings, and in the same year, a New York Times commission etchings of Moscow, China and Japan. He was best known for his architecturally compelling images of New York and other cityscapes. Most of his etching plates were cancelled and donated as scrap metal to the war effort in 1940. The New York Times announced his passing in 1977 with an obituary, the headline noting he was "Well Known for Etchings."

Four of the etchings of Tokyo subjects that Schutz produced from his trip to Japan were published in the December 8, 1929 issue of The New York Times Magazine accompanying an article by Hugh Byas on the rebuilding of Tokyo and the environs devastated by the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. This etching illustrates the famous Sacred Bridge (shinkyo) over the Daiya River at the Futarasan Shrine in Nikko, far from the destruction of the quake.

References:
Hugh Byas, TOKIO BUILDS FOR A STRANGE DUAL LIFE: Architecture of the Remade City Is the Mirror of Old and New That Dwell There Together, The New York Times Magazine, December 8, 1929
The New York Times, Anton Schutz, 83, Started Graphic Society in 1925; Well Known for Etchings (obituary), October 7, 1977
The British Museum, Anton Schutz biography (www.britishmuseum.org)
(inv. no. 10-2940)

$500

Anton Schutz

1894-1977

Scene of Nara

etching, signed in pencil A. Schutz, printer's notations and title inscribed along the bottom margin, 566 Scene of Nara, ca. 1929

image 11 3/4 by 8 7/8 in., 30 by 22.5 cm
sheet 18 1/8 by 14 in., 46 by 35.5 cm

Born in Berndorf, Rhineland Germany in 1894, Anton Friedrich Joseph Schutz enrolled at the University of Munich in 1912 before serving in the German army on the Western and Eastern fronts from 1914-1918. After the war, he graduated from the University of Munich with a degree in architecture and then was admitted to the Royal Academy of Fine Art in 1919 where he completed a degree in Mechanical Engineering and Architecture in 1920. He became well-known for his etchings of German landscapes and cityscapes before immigrating in 1924 to the United States where he settled in the New York and worked as an assistant to the prominent etcher and lithographer, Joseph Pennell (1857-1926), at the Art Students League. In the same year as his arrival, Schutz held his first solo exhibition at the Anderson Gallery. The following year he founded the New York Graphic Society (which would become the world's largest publisher of fine art reproductions and was acquired by Time-Life Books in 1966) and landed commissions from the US chamber of Commerce to produce 12 etchings celebrating the 300th anniversary of the founding of New Amsterdam as well as a series of etchings for the New York Times Magazine. More major commissions followed; in 1928 the 14th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica published 40 Schutz etchings, and in the same year, a New York Times commission etchings of Moscow, China and Japan. He was best known for his architecturally compelling images of New York and other cityscapes. Most of his etching plates were cancelled and donated as scrap metal to the war effort in 1940. The New York Times announced his passing in 1977 with an obituary, the headline noting he was "Well Known for Etchings."

This image is one of four etchings by Schutz that accompanied an article by Hugh Byas published in December 1929 in The New York Times Magazine on the rebuilding of Tokyo after the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. The text includes an amusing passage regarding a moga ('modern girl'), and harshly criticizes modern architecture (making an exception for Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel) and the reconstruction, bemoaning that "Japan is consequently without any architecture she can call her own." Although Schutz identifies the location as in ancient city of Nara, very far from Tokyo, the image was likely selected to represents the surving "Old Japan" treasured by the author. The magazine caption avoided the question of location by identifying it as, In a Temple District.

References:
Hugh Byas, TOKIO BUILDS FOR A STRANGE DUAL LIFE: Architecture of the Remade City Is the Mirror of Old and New That Dwell There Together, The New York Times Magazine, December 8, 1929
The New York Times, Anton Schutz, 83, Started Graphic Society in 1925; Well Known for Etchings (obituary), October 7, 1977
The British Museum, Anton Schutz biography (www.britishmuseum.org)
(inv. no. 10-2941)

$500

Noel Nouet

1885-1969

Kikyo Gate
(Kikyomon)

woodblock print printed in blue ink, with publisher's watermark Do (Doi Hangaten), signed within the block, N. Nouet 1935, the title in the right margin, Kikyomon, with publication information along the bottom margin reading from left to right, to Ikeda (carver Ikeda), suri Yamada (printer Yamada), and Hanmoto Doi (publisher Doi), 1935

dai oban tate-e 15 3/4 by 10 1/2 in., 40 by 26.7 cm

Noël Nouët was born in Bretagne, France in 1885. He was first introduced to Japan via his mother's collection of Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) woodblock prints. He moved to Paris in his mid-twenties in order to write poetry, and through social connections he became friends with several prominent Japanese artists studying Western-style painting. This familiarity with Japanese nationals may have inspired his decision to go to Japan in 1926 to teach French at a high school in Shizuoka (near Mt. Fuji). A brief return to France was followed by a new teaching job at the Tokyo Foreign Language School in 1930. It was around this time that Nouët began sketching in pen and ink. His illustrations were used in newspapers and books, both in Japan and in France.

In 1936, one of Nouët's former students, S. Doi (the son of the Tokyo woodblock print publisher Sadaichi Doi and older brother to Sadaichi's successor, Eiichi Doi), who had seen Nouët's drawings, offered to have his family turn one his ink sketches turned into a woodblock print. This was not a easy task, as most color print artists worked with a brush, and the shading and fine lines created by a fountain pen made carving the blocks all the more difficult. Nouët was pleased with the result, this print -- a monochromatic rendition of the Imperial Palace -- and a second monochromatic study of the gate at Shiba Park soon followed. Their success emboldened Sadaichi Doi in 1937 to publish a series of full color prints designed by Nouët called Tokyo fukkei zen nijuyon mai (Scenes of Tokyo, Twenty-Four Views).

Nouët's compositions are reminiscent of the work of Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858), a comparison he welcomed, and Kawase Hasui (1883-1957), another artist often burdened with the Hiroshige landscape legacy, but Nouët's prints are distinctive in their execution. Most prints produced in this period with the involvement of Japanese publishers were usually based on watercolors or paintings. Nouët's prints, however, were clearly derived directly from his Western-style pen and ink drawings. His reliance on the black line for more than just outlines, such as shading and sketchy details, would have been unreasonably laborious (if not impossible) for the block carver to replicate. As such, it is believed that the black lines in his other landscapes were achieved with zinc metal plates (a technique known to have been used by Hiroshi Yoshida, 1876-1950), while the colors were printed with woodblocks. That said, years later, Suzue Doi, the widow of Eiichi Doi, recalled that the keyblocks were hand carved. Recognizing that printing from a wood keyblock is virtually the same as printing from a zinc plate, it is nearly impossible to be certain which method was used. However, as this is the first print produced by Doi, and monochromatic, if any Nouët prints had wood keyblocks, this would be one.

Reference:
Darrel C. Karl, Nouët To Draw a City: The Tokyo Sketches of Noël Noët, Eastern Impressions, easternimp.blogspot.com, August 28, 2017

$1,100

Yamagishi Kazue

1891-1984

Notre Dame from the Banks of the Seine

color woodblock print; signed at lower right in kanji, Kazue, with red circular artist's seal in katakana, Kazue, paper with Yamagishi Kazue watermark; ca. 1930

16 5/8 by 12 1/2 in., 42.3 by 31.9 cm

Yamagishi Kazue was born in Ina City of Nagano and moved to Tokyo at the age of 15 where he worked as a woodblock carver for the Yomiuri Shinbun Company from 1906 to 1916. In addition to learning the block-carving trade, Yamagishi studied painting with Kuroda Seki (1866-1924), one of the most recognized and influential yoga (Western-style) artists; and sculpture with Muto Shuho. From 1917 he carved woodblocks for a variety of artists and he was sent to the United States and Europe from 1926 to 1929 by the Ministry of Education in order to demonstrate and promote Japanese woodblock printing techniques. He carved blocks for Yokoyama Taikan (1868-1968), Takehisa Yumeji (1884-1934), Kaburagi Kiyokata (1878-1972), Hiroshi Yoshida (1876-1950), Paul Jacoulet (1896-1960), Ishikawa Toraji (1875-1964) and book covers for Onchi Koshiro (1891-1955).

In addition to his importance as the carver of choice to leading shin-hanga (lit. 'new print') artists, Kazue self-carved and self-printed many woodblock prints of his own design, which aligns him with the ethos of the sosaku-hanga (lit. 'creative print') artists. This view of the Notre Dame seems to be part of a group (or untitled series) of prints featuring scenes from his European tour. Kazue also published other self-carved and self-printed series including One Hundred Views of Japan (Nihon hyakkei) in 1929; One Hundred Views of the World (Sekai hyakkei) in 1937; and One Hundred Views of the East (Toa hyakkei), in 1937.

References:
Helen Merritt, Guide to Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints: 1900-1975, 1992, p. 168
Catalogue of Collections: Prints, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, 1993, p. 257 (corrected artist's dates)
(inv. no. 10-2949)

SOLD

Ishikawa Toraji

1875-1964

Mount Aso
(Asoyama)

color woodblock print, signed Ishikawa with artist's seal Tora, the title in the upper left margin Asoyama, the carver's seal in the lower left margin, Yamagishi Kazue to, and printer's seal Urushibara Eijiro suri, with artist's watermark, Ishikawa Toraji, published by the artist ca. 1934, lifetime edition

dai oban yoko-e 14 5/8 by 19 in., 37 by 48.3 cm

This is one of a trio of mountainscape prints produced under Toraji's direction in 1934. It is based on an oil painting Toraji made in 1933 called 'View of Mt. Aso from Daikanha.' The carver, Yamagishi Kazue (1891-1984), carved the blocks for most of the print by Paul Jacoulet (1902-1960) and worked with other Japanese artists such as Kaburagi Kiyokata (1878-1972), Takehisa Yumeji (1884-1934), and Hiroshi Yoshida (1876-1950) in addition to producing print designs in his own right. The printer, Urushibara Eijiro (1882-1943), is the brother of Urushibara Yoshijiro (Mokuchu, 1889-1953), the Japanese ex-pat printmaker who taught woodblock carving and printing to British and French printmakers between the two World Wars and who worked with European artists such as Frank Brangywn (1867-1956) to turn their designs into woodblock prints. Although later, post-WWII printings of some of Toraji's mountainscapes are known to exist, they bear the name of a different printer, as Urushibara Eijiro died in 1943.

References:
Helen Merritt, Guide to Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints: 1900-1975, 1992, p. 44-45
Museum of Art Kochi, Ishikawa Toraji, 2002, pp. 62, 177
(inv. no. 10-5138)

$2,500

Paul Jacoulet

1902-1960

Beauté Japonaise Moderne (Kobé)

color woodblock print, with artist's watermark of his initials and name in kanji, JP Jaku Rei; elegantly pencil signed at lower right, Paul Jacoulet, with red artist's seal Jaku-rei (in the shape of a mandarin duck), the title in French on attached paper label in the lower margin, Beauté Japonaise Moderne. Kobé, and block carver's seal at lower left, Maeda Kentaro to (Maeda Kentaro), hand-numbered red limited-edition seal on verso, Hyakugoju mai zeppan, dai juschichi ban (150 limited edtion, number 17), published by the artist in September 1935

obaiban tate-e 19 by 14 3/4 in., 48.3 by 37.5 cm

Paris-born Paul Jacoulet spent only the first four years of his life in France. He was not a robust child and would struggle the rest of his life with lingering health problems. His father took a job in Japan shortly after the birth of his frail son, but it would be four years before Paul was strong enough to journey to Tokyo with his mother. He excelled at languages, calligraphy, drawing, painting, and also learned to play the violin as well as the Japanese shamisen. He collected thousands of butterflies (a hobby he continued to pursue as an adult), Japanese and Korean ceramics, and 'golden age' ukiyo-e woodblock prints. His early paintings were based on the ukiyo-e style. As a young man, Jacoulet took a job as a translator at the French Embassy in Tokyo. He loathed his work but devoted his personal time to entertainments, Noh theater, bunraku (puppetry) theater, sumo wrestling, and the company of actors and geisha, all the while neglecting his own art. When the Great Kanto earthquake in 1923 destroyed much of Tokyo, including the houses on either side of his home (which was miraculously untouched), Jacoulet had a realization: he was wasting time that should be spent focused on his art. He resigned from the embassy and embarked on a series of trips in the late 1920s to the South Seas and Korea, filling his notebooks with designs for future paintings.

In June 1934 Jacoulet completed his first print with the influential carver, Yamagishi Kazue (ca. 1893-1966), and henceforward devoted his efforts to meticulous printmaking. After a disappointing experience with the distribution of a group of prints published with Kato Junji (also known as Kato Junzo) in November 1934, Jacoulet became his own publisher, recruiting the well-known carver Maeda Kentaro (active 1934-61) who alternated with Yamagishi for a period before becoming Jacoulet's only carver from the production of this print onward. Jacoulet spared no expense in materials: he had paper hand-made in Kyoto with his watermark and used only natural pigments. He was known for lavish printings, and yet frugally, would only print impressions as they were ordered or that he had already sold to his subscribers. He also employed a complicated numbering system, with different edition sizes in English and Japanese, but in general, and rarely would an edition be completed, and in this case, Miles estimates that less than 100 impressions were produced.

This print is one of only four designs by Jacoulet that feature a woman in modern (Western) clothing, and the only one who was Japanese. The beauty falls within a subset of bijin-ga depicting women displaying the fashions and attributes of moga (shortened from modan garu, 'modern girl'). The elegant palette is uncharacteristically restrained for Jacoulet who tended to revel in exoticism. The stripes on the cushions in the background were hand-applied, and the hue of the red lips were the result of experiments pressing colors from flowers and berries. Miles points out that while this print was not particularly popular in her time (hence the scarcity of impressions), "she is now among the half-dozen most appreciated works." (Miles, p. 95)

Reference:
Richard Miles, The Prints of Paul Jacoulet, 1982, p. 94, illus. p. 49, cat. no. 28
(inv. no. 10-5400)

$8,500

Shirley Russell

1886-1985

Banana Flower

color woodblock print, with artist's monogram, signed in pencil on the lower right margin, Shirley Russell, titled and numbered to the left, Banana Flower 65/100, published by Watanabe Shozaburo, ca, 1935

dai oban tate-e 14 5/8 by 11 1/4 in., 37.1 by 28.5 cm

Shirley Ximena Hopper Russell (1886-1985), also known as Shirley Marie Russell, was born in Del Rey, California. She studied art and modern language at Stanford University, graduating in 1907 (1908 according to some sources). In 1909, she married Lawrence Russell, an engineer. After the premature death of her husband in 1912, she began teaching in Palo Alto to support herself and her young son. In 1921, Russell and her son visited Hawaii and she decided to take up permanent residence there in 1923. Russell studied under the Hawaiian marine artist Lionel Walden during the 1920s. She also studied in New York and traveled to Paris at least four times to further her art education, including an extended stay in the 1930s. In addition to a stint at the Académie Julian, her teachers in Paris included André Lhote. Her 1927 trip to Paris resulted in one of her paintings beings exhibited there in the Spring Salon.

In the mid-1930s, Russell traveled to the Far East, visiting at least Japan and China. Russell's granddaughter believes that she traveled to the Far East a number of times, so this may not necessarily have been her first or only trip to Asia. (At some point, either during the course of this trip or some other trip, she also exhibited some of her paintings in Tokyo.) While in Tokyo, it appears that she made contact with the Japanese woodblock print publisher Watanabe Shozaburo, who would publish a number of prints that she designed in the 1935-1936 time period. Russell’s introduction to Watanabe came through Charles W. Bartlett, who had worked with Watanabe in the teens and twenties. Since only 12 of Russell's approximately 16 woodblock prints are listed in one of Watanabe's notebooks, Russell may have hired Watanabe to create some additional prints on some subsequent visit to Tokyo, or she may have commissioned them long distance from Hawaii, as most of Bartlett's post-WWI prints had been. The majority of Russell’s woodblock prints are tropical botanicals, usually depicted in extreme close-up. However, she did design a couple of Hawaiian landscapes as well as one California scene.

For twenty-three years Russell taught art at President William McKinley High School in Honolulu, where her students included Satoru Abe and John Chin Young. She also taught art at the University of Hawaii and at the Honolulu Museum of Art, where she had three one-woman exhibitions of her paintings. She continued to paint almost daily until her death in Honolulu in 1985 at age 98.

Reference:
Darrel C. Karl, Japan Comes to Hawaii: Shirley Russell's Botanical Prints, Eastern Impressions, easternimp.blogspot.com, October 8, 2016 (biography excerpt)
(inv. no. 10-5504)

SOLD

Shirley Russell

1886-1985

Carmel Mission

color woodblock print, with artist's monogram, S.R. in lower right corner, signed in pencil on the lower right margin, Shirley Russell, titled and numbered to the left, Carmel Mission #18/50, possibly published by Watanabe Shozaburo, ca, 1935

dai oban tate-e 15 1/8 by 11 7/8 in., 38.4 by 30.2 cm

Shirley Ximena Hopper Russell (1886-1985), also known as Shirley Marie Russell, was born in Del Rey, California. She studied art and modern language at Stanford University, graduating in 1907 (1908 according to some sources). In 1909, she married Lawrence Russell, an engineer. After the premature death of her husband in 1912, she began teaching in Palo Alto to support herself and her young son. In 1921, Russell and her son visited Hawaii and she decided to take up permanent residence there in 1923. Russell studied under the Hawaiian marine artist Lionel Walden during the 1920s. She also studied in New York, and traveled to Paris at least four times to further her art education, including an extended stay in the 1930s. In addition to a stint at the Académie Julian, her teachers in Paris included André Lhote. Her 1927 trip to Paris resulted in one of her paintings beings exhibited there in the Spring Salon.

In the mid-1930s, Russell traveled to the Far East, visiting at least Japan and China. While in Tokyo, it appears that she made contact with the Japanese woodblock print publisher Watanabe Shozaburo, who would publish a number of prints that she designed in the 1935-1936 time period. Russell's introduction to Watanabe came through Charles W. Bartlett, who had worked with Watanabe in the teens and twenties. Since only 12 of Russell's approximately 16 woodblock prints are listed in one of Watanabe's notebooks, Russell may have hired Watanabe to create some additional prints on some subsequent visit to Tokyo, or she may have commissioned them long distance from Hawaii, as most of Bartlett's post-WWI prints had been.

The majority of Russell's prints are tropical botanicals viewed so close up they are nearly abstracts. This design is not among those recorded by Watanabe, and it is the only Russell woodblock print depicting a California landscape.

Reference:
Darrel C. Karl, Japan Comes to Hawaii: Shirley Russell's Botanical Prints, Eastern Impressions, easternimp.blogspot.com, October 8, 2016 (biography excerpt)
(inv. no. 10-5493)

$1,400

M. Kennedy

dates unknown

To Dai Mon (East Gate) Seoul, Korea

color woodblock print with artist's square monogram MK within the composition, signed in ink below, M Kennedy, titled in ink along the bottom margin, "To Dai Mon" (East Gate) Seoul. Korea, ca. mid-1920s-1930s

chuban yoko-e 10 by 7 1/8 in., 25.4 by 18.1 cm

The exact identity of this artist is an ongoing mystery. An unsigned impression in the Muller Collection entered the Sackler Gallery (now National Museum of Asian Art) in 2003 with the understandable attribution to Elizabeth Keith (1887-1956) as it bears similarities to Keith's larger-format print of the same subject published in 1920. Years later this impression, and another surfaced, both ink-signed in the lower right corner 'M. Kennedy,' at which time the monogram in the stonework, clearly ending with a 'K,' in the lower right area of the composition took on new significance. Not long after, another landscape came on the market of a Korean subject with the same monogram titled, signed and dated, The Han River, Seoul, Korea, M. Kennedy, 1926. And recently, an impression of this design was located in an auction in Surrey, United Kingdom, with a label on verso which read, "An original woodblock print by Mrs. Kennedy, a friend of Mrs. E. W. Lachmann, mother of Daphne (or Dorothy). Mrs. Kennedy gave it to Daphne as a wedding present in 1939."

Stylistically, it seems very likely that the print was produced in Japan, possibly by the publisher Watanabe Shozaburo (1885-1962). The 1926 print of the Han River is reminiscent of the way Watanabe produced mitsugiriban by Takahashi Hiroaki (Shotei, 1871-1945), while this print of the East Gate was produced more in his shin-hanga ('new print') style (although economizing somewhat with a smaller than oban-sized sheet). With the exception of the unsigned print in the Muller Collection, all three of the other signed Kennedy prints were found in the United Kingdom. Alternatively, if it was not printed in Japan, it could have been printed by the supremely talented Mokuchu Urushibara (1888-1953) who was living in the U.K. and integral to the development of color woodblock printing in England in the 1920s and 1930s.

References:
Darrel C. Karl, The Kennedy Mystique, Eastern Impressions, easternimp.blogspot.com, April 17, 2018
Robert O. Muller Collection, Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art, accession no. S2003.8.1071 (unsigned, mis-attributed to Elizabeth Keith)
(inv. no. 10-5518)

SOLD

Pieter Irwin Brown (Peter Van Oordt)

1903-1988

Chinese Winter

color woodblock print color woodblock print with karazuri (lit. 'blind printing' or embossing) of the accumulated and falling snow, pencil signed at lower left, Pieter Irwin Brown, with red oval Tobin collector's seal in lower right margin, published by Watanabe Shozaburo, ca. 1936

10 1/4 by 14 3/8 in., 26 by 36.5 cm

Pieter Irwin Brown was born in Rotterdam in 1903 to an Irish mother and Dutch father. He had a private art teacher before studying at the Rotterdam Academy of Visual Arts where he studied under Professor Jurres. When his family moved to Utrecht, Brown enrolled at the school of decorative and applied arts, from which he was recruited by a leading architect to work at his studio. In 1921, he entered the Royal Academy in Amsterdam where he studied for two years. In 1923, he embarked on an extensive trip which took him through Europe and Africa, including a three-month stay in Tunisia and a six-month stint in Belfast where he found work as a designer for a linen manufacturer. In 1925, Brown settled in London, forming a partnership, 'Ralph and Brown, Poster Artists' with a businessman, Rickman Ralph. The poster company specialized in designs for railway companies, including The Underground Group (for the London tube lines), the National Radio Corporation, and the London County Council.

In 1932 Brown was on the move again; first he visited Egypt for three months, before he continued on to Java, where he stayed for an extended period, supporting himself with freelance work again. Early in 1934, Brown journeyed to Japan, roughing it in the third class of a small cargo ship. He finally landed at the coal mining town of Miiko in Kyushu. He wrote about his first impressions of Japan in an autobiographical essay to the collector James Tobin in the 1950s:

Everything was black with coal and yet beautiful. To this day I do not know what it is that gives this land its charm. He was inspired: In Kyoto I saw Japanese prints all over the place. My own house late at night against the moon was a print. The temples harmoniously interwoven with the shapely pines were prints. The women in kimono walking along the river under the weeping willows were old prints...A hum of the past and the invisible spirits of the Kamo river seemed to unfold before my eyes more prints, old prints. (Merritt, Point of Contact, p. 52).

Brown made his way to Kyoto where he settled in a small house. Shortly thereafter, he traveled to China, Manchuria and Korea, resulting in a number of sketches and drawings, many of which he sold to the shin-hanga publisher Watanabe Shozaburo upon his return to Japan. Watanabe developed the works into woodblock prints which he then showed the artist several months later for his approval (and presumably, the artist's signature). This inspired Brown to produce more designs specifically to be made into prints by both Watanabe and the publisher Adachi Toyohisa (1902-1982). In 1939, black and white reproductions of eleven of the Watanabe prints were used to illustrate Karakoro: At Home in Japan, a travel memoir by American journalist Henry Noel (1908-2001). According to Stewart J. Tease, a collector who was in Japan at the time, the Watanabe prints bear only the artist's pencil signature, and no Watanabe seal; while the Adachi prints bear the artists PIB seal as well as the impressed Adachi seal (Merritt, p. 52).

Brown left Japan in 1940, stopping in Honolulu before arriving in San Francisco (on a British passport, which he presumably was able to obtain because his mother was Irish). The same year he exhibited his prints in Peking and Shanghai; his prints were also exhibited in Tokyo, Kyoto, Honolulu, and at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1946. In 1942 he was living in San Francisco and employed at Graves Gallery (an interior design and art gallery) on Sutter Street when he filled out a draft card for the US Army; and on June 21, 1944, while still in San Francisco, he became a naturalized citizen. After the 1946 show, Brown recedes from view; he moved to Santa Barbara, and for reasons unknown, and changed his name to Peter van Oordt (his mother's maiden name). He is rumored to have moved to New York City; a Peter Van Oordt is listed as living at 318 W. 56th St. in 1957. Paintings of hyper-focused natural subjects signed Peter Van Oordt and dated the 1950s are extant, including one of a composition of rocks which was deaccessioned by the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.

It has been suggested that Brown's mysterious departure from the public eye following the war may relate to his extensive pre-war travels throughout Asia and his remarkably long residency in Japan. As a traveling artist he may have found himself in a position to be of service to an intelligence organization in the years leading up to the war, and if so, perhaps after the war it was only pragmatic to keep a lower profile.

Provenance:
James D. Tobin, Portland, Oregon

References:
Henry Noel, Karakoro:At Home in Japan, 1939, illustrated by Pieter Irwin Brown with permission of S. Watanabe
Helen Merritt, Point of Contact, 1993, p. 52, no. 32
Yokohama Museum of Art, Eyes Towards Asia: Ukiyo-e Artists from Abroad, 1996, p. 135, no. 180
(inv. no. 10-5478)

$1,800

Marguerite Peters Gifford

1887-1969

Side Gate at Doshisha University, Kyoto [Gardener's Cottage]
(Doshisha Tokiwai Mon)

printed signature at lower right, Marguerite Gifford, and printed titled in the upper margin, Doshisha Tokiwai Mon, possibly produced in the studio of Hiroshi Yoshida, with partially smudge pencil notations on the bottom margin, 7.60, 16/23 (?), ca. 1939-1940

10 5/8 by 14 1/8 in., 26.9 by 35.8 cm

In 1937, two years after the unexpected passing of her husband and at the age of 50, Marguerite Gifford embarked on what was meant to be a two-month tour of tour European countries organized by the International School of Art, studying watercolor painting while in London. When the tour was completed, Gifford repeatedly extended her journey, at first remaining in Europe and then in 1939, she continued to Asia, visiting Bombay, Bangkok and Hong Kong en route to Japan. While in Japan, Gifford studied woodblock printing, apprenticing herslef to two (as yet unidentified) printmakers (it is unclear if this refers to carver, printer, or publisher). It seems at least one individual may have been the publisher Watanabe Shozaburo (1885-1962), or a craftsman associated with him. Watanabe spoke English and frequently collaborated with Western artists, including Gifford, for whom he recorded producing eight woodblock prints. The editions of those designs must have been quite small because to date, images of only three of the Watanabe-produced prints have been located.

This print is not listed in Watanabe's records, and as such, would appear to be the result of Gifford's association with the second 'printmaker.' In his article on Gifford, Darrel Karl theorizes convincingly that this print was likely published in the studio of Hiroshi Yoshida (1876-1950) because the young girl in this composition is strikingly reminiscent of a figure that is found on two different woodblock prints by the artist (see detail below). Indeed, Yoshida, like Watanabe, also spoke English and ran a robust woodblock print studio. Interestingly, while Watanabe was well-known for sympathetically adapting paintings by Western artists into woodblock prints, the Yoshida family studio became well-known for training artists to carve and print woodblock prints themselves. And while this print does not seem to be the product of a novice carver and/or printer in any way, it certainly stands to reason that Gifford may have been involved in some way with its production while the professionals completed the edition.

A framed impression of this design was recently discovered with a hand-written note by Gifford affixed to the back with an explanation of the subject:

"KYOTO, JAPAN
Gardener's cottage
Doshisha Missionary College
first in Japan

Mrs. Morris Gifford"

Reference:
Darrel Karl, The Asian Spring of Mrs. Gifford, Eastern Impressions: Western Printmakers and the Orient, easternimp.blogspot.com, August 15, 2015 (with note by Gifford courtesy of Serge Astieres)
(inv. no. 10-5145)

SOLD

Lilian May Miller

1895-1943

Lantern on a Hill, Nikko (Spring)

silver mica ground color woodblock print; with artist's LM monogram at lower right, signed and dated in ink within the composition, Lilian Miller 1934, and titled in pencil in the artist's hand on bottom edge at left, Lantern on a Hill, Nikko, and at right, Spring; self-carved and self-printed, 1934

10 5/8 by 10 5/8 in., 27 by 26.9 cm

In his monograph on Charles W. Bartlett, Richard Miles wrote: "Only the redoubtable Lilian May Miller among Westerners who attempted pure 'self-carved, self-printed' works could be accused of success." (p.64)

This print was produced during a last burst of printmaking productivity in the early 1930s while Miller was living in Japan and supporting herself solely by the sale of her prints and paintings. As Kendall Brown notes, the dozen or so new designs Miller produced after 1933 can be defined by two distinct types: monochromatic studies in blues and greys; and in contrast, a group of vibrant compositions featuring Orientalized themes. No doubt Lantern on a Hill, Nikko, issued in two versions, Autumn, featuring fall foliage against a warm tan ground, and this print, Spring, with lush green foliage against a lavish mica ground, falls into the later grouping. The novelty of the round format suggesting a view from a window and the taunt composition with a single falling leaf and sharply delineated black-outline would have easily fit in a stylish art-deco interior of the day.

References:
Richard Miles & Jennifer Saville, A Printmaker in Paradise: The Art and Life of Charles W. Bartlett, 1996, p. 64
Kendall H. Brown, Between Two Worlds: The Life and Art of Lilian May Miller, 1998, pp. 73-80, ills. fig. 97, cat. 105
(inv. no. 10-5477)

SOLD

Willy Seiler

1903-1988

Sailboat Painting & Twelve Etchings Mounted in Calendar

oil on canvas, signed at lower right, Seiler, in period frame with metal label embossed, Willy Seiler, together with Art Calendar 1954 mounted with twelve copperplate etchings, each pencil signed W. Seiler, ca. 1933-50s

painting 21 1/8 by 18 in., 53.5 by 45.7cm
frame 27 3/8 by 24 3/8 in., 69.5 by 62 cm

Willy Seiler was one of the most popular foreign printmakers in post-WWII Japan. Born in Germany in 1903, Seiler received his first schooling in art in Dresden and in Munich, followed by a two-year period of study in Paris. Thereafter he worked as an artist and as a restorer of old paintings until about 1928, at which point he left Germany and began to travel the world. Seiler first visited Japan in 1933 with his wife at the invitation of the Japanese Industry Club on his way to the United States and South America. Four years later, he decided to follow his older brother Rudolf Seiler on his own trip to Japan. The two brothers would thereafter remain in Japan for over three decades. In 1937, Willy Seiler founded an art school in Tokyo until it closed in 1945.

Rudolf Seiler, like most foreign residents, was forcibly evacuated from Tokyo with his family in the spring of 1945 and was resettled in Karuizawa. Willy Seiler and his family, who were living in the Kobe area at that time, were evacuated to Gotemba, near Hakone. He would later move Karuizawa, where he opened up a studio. Karuizawa, a posh resort town, was also one of the locations where the occupying forces were stationed after WWII. Willy Seiler instructed U.S. Army personnel in oil painting, life drawing, and sketching at the Tokyo Army Educational Center in the late 1940s. By the 1950s, Seiler had reopened the Willy Seiler Academy of Fine Arts in Tokyo in partnership with the conductor and composer Manfred Gurlitts. One of Seiler's neighbors in Karuizawa was the French artist and woodblock print designer Paul Jacoulet (1902-1960), who also occasionally lectured at the Tokyo Army Educational Center.

In the post-War period, Seiler also produced over 150 etching designs of Japanese landscapes, nude portraits, portraits of celebrities such as General MacArthur and Syngman Rhee, and scenes of Japanese and Korean village life. Seiler's target audience for these etchings were American tourists in Japan and, in particular, the G.I.s stationed in occupied Japan. The bulk of these etchings were produced in two editions, one printed in black or sepia ink, and a second smaller edition that was hand-colored with watercolor. According to Seiler himself, his work was owned by such luminaries as Sir Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy, Dwight D. Eisenhower, General Douglas MacArthur, Willy Brandt, Conrad Hilton, Robert MacNamara, John Foster Dulles, Theodor Heuss, Danny Kaye, and Eleanor Roosevelt. Seiler's target audience for these etchings were American tourists in Japan and, in particular, the G.I.s stationed in occupied Japan.

The painting's frame appears to be original, and was possibly made by Seiler himself. As the painting is undated, it is unclear if it was made before or after World War II. However, one can speculate that it likely depicts a sailboat on the Inland Sea and therefore could date from his pre-War time in Kobe. In any event, it is apparent that it had be painted no later than 1953. In advance of 1954, Seiler produced a calendar that contained 13 of his black and white etchings. Each etching is pencil-signed by Seiler. The etching for May 1954 is of a sailboat clearly based on the instant oil painting.

Reference:
Darrel C. Karl, Welcome to Karuizawa: The Etchings of Willy Seiler, Eastern Impressions: Western Printmakers and the Orient, easternimp.blogspot.com, Nov. 17, 2016
(inv. no. C-3359)

$1,800

Influencers: Japonisme and Modern Japan, Part 1 →