#japanese woodcut

[geritsel]

Ito Takashi - Late Autumn at Yachi, Charcoal Making, color woodblock print, 1950.

[a-bit-of-japanology]

Ikaruga-dera in Early Autumn, Shôwa period, dated 1942 - Hiratsuka Unichi

Shôwa period, 1926-1989

[secondsofpleasure]

Rikan / 3.2023

Memorial Portrait of Arashi Kichisaburō I as Mashiba Hisayoshi, 1821, by Shunkōsai Hokushū (Japanese, active 1810–1832) (Philadelphia Museum of Art: Purchased with the Lola Downin Peck Fund and with funds contributed by various donors, 1969-208-199); Arashi Kitsusaburō I as Nagai Genzburō, Disguised as a Komusō (Traveling Mendicant Priest), 1821, by Ganjōsai Kunihiro (Japanese, active around 1815–1843) (Philadelphia Museum of Art: Purchased with the Lola Downin Peck Fund and with funds contributed by various donors, 1969-208-219)

[the-cricket-chirps]

Aoyama Seizan, Horses, 1930s

[vintagecameraporrrn]

Toshi Yoshida - Eagle Owl, color woodblock print, 1968.

[balkanparamo]

Morning Waves: Woodcut print by Shiro Kasamatsu (1898-1992)

[smithsonianlibraries]

Some example steps from the production of a twenty color print from Shinbi Shoin's Processes of wood-cut printing explained (1916).

Full text, including all twenty steps, available here.

[oldbooklover]

[classic-asian-art]

Morozumi Bungo no kami Masakiyo, ca. 1849. by Utagawa Kuniyoshi

[uwmspeccoll]

Staff Pick of the Week

My staff pick this week is the trade edition of The Tale of the Shining Princess by Japanese-born writer Hisako Matsubara (b.1935) and Japanese-Canadian artist-printmaker Naoko Matsubara (b.1937), published by Kodansha International LTD. Tokyo, Japan in 1966. 

As a artist-printmaker and bookmaker who makes woodcuts, I am greatly inspired by Naoko’s prints. Naoko Matsubara’s work carries on traditions of Japanese printmaking while having its own contemporary flavor. Her woodcuts are ecstatic, they are vibrating with movement. Her use of bold shapes and the white line of the the carving tool makes the most of what woodcut has to offer. In the book form, the active images carry the reader’s eyes through the book space. Her use of negative space activates the page. Additionally, her woodcuts have translated beautifully to commercial printing. 

The Matsubara sisters are daughters of a senior Shinto priest, and were raised in Kyoto. Both studied, lived, and worked in the United States. Hisako received her Master of Arts degree from Pennsylvania State College, moving to Germany where she continued her studies and became a prominent writer, publishing her work in Japanese, English, and German. In the 1980s she moved back to the United States, this time to California where she worked at Stanford University. 

Naoko received her Master of Fine Arts from Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, now Carnegie Mellon University. After her studies she traveled across Europe and Asia. She returned to the United States and became the personal assistant to the artist and wood engraver Fritz Eichenberg, an artist who has been featured many times on our blog. Naoko taught at Pratt University in New York and at the University of Rohde Island. She also lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts for a time. Naoko is currently living and working in Canada in Oakville, Ontario, where she continues to work and exhibit nationally. 

The work of both Hisako and Naoko have had great influence inside the United States and around the world. So lets celebrate their accomplishments! 

This book has end sheets of mulberry paper with inclusions of Bamboo leaves, the cover is a red textured paper with a gold stamped design by Naoko. 

View some of our other AAPI selections for this month.

View our other Staff Picks.

- Teddy, Special Collections Graduate Intern

[geritsel]

Kawase Hasui - Rainy Night at Maekawa, color woodblock print from the series Views of the Tokaido.

[a-bit-of-japanology]

Conversation (Kuchi-e)

Takeuchi Keishu

c. 1900-1910

[heaveninawildflower]

Flowering Branch (Japanese, circa 1861).

Wood block print.

Image and text information courtesy NYPL Digital Collection.

[the-cricket-chirps]

Shibata Zeshin, Lobster, Edo period-Meiji era

Utagawa Hiroshige, Lobster, Prawn and Shrimps, 1830-1844

Bakufu Ohno, Spiny Lobster, 1937

[tilbageidanmark]

Kaiju Tourism Bureau Travel Posters by Chet Phillips

[o98krv0]

"mitochondrion" , woodcut [2022]