graphite, ink and watercolor on J. Whatman English watercolor paper; titled at lower right, SHIMO-YOSHIDA, and signed, H. YOSHIDA, ca. 1902-07
13 3/8 by 20 1/4 in., 33.9 by 51.3 cm
Born Ueda Hiroshi in Fukuoka Prefecture into a family that had been of samurai rank, in 1891 Hiroshi was adopted by his art teacher Yoshida Kasaburo (1861-1894) who recognized the young man’s innate talent. Kasaburo was trained in traditional Japanese painting techniques but had become a pioneer in Western-style painting known as yoga. In 1893 at the age of seventeen, Yoshida traveled to Kyoto in order to study with his adoptive father’s former yoga teacher, Tamura Soryu (1846-1918) where he befriended another young artist, Miyake Katsumi (1874-1954). Miyake had recently been inspired to pursue watercolor painting after having seen an exhibition in Tokyo of paintings by the British artist John Varley, Jr. (1850-1933) and Yoshida was likewise deeply impressed by Miyake’s efforts in the medium. The admiration was mutual, of Yoshida, Miyake said, “He is a kind of genius and I am astonished by his talent” (translated by Yasunaga, 2002, p. 24). The following year in 1894, Yoshida moved to Tokyo to study painting under another yoga pioneer, Koyama Shotaro (1857-1916) in his private academy, Fudosha.
While Yoshida would have primarily worked in oil painting at the Fudosha Academy, he also developed into a skillful watercolorist. Yoshida recognized that while it was easy to paint watercolors, most artists underestimated how difficult it was to excel at it. He later wrote in a 1907 memoir, “…many Japanese artists do not devote themselves to watercolors in the same way they would if they were working in oil. They make ‘easy watercolors, which display no taste or substance.” (Yasunaga, p. 25). Yoshida made his point with a monumental watercolor titled ‘High Mountains and Stream’ (59 by 106 1/4 in; 150 by 270 cm) that was exhibited at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1900 where it won an award and made Yoshida famous as a watercolor artist in Japan. Unfortunately, photographs of the work or its installation have not surfaced, and the whereabouts of the painting itself is unknown.
In October of 1899, six months before the Paris Exposition opened, the very independently-minded twenty-three year old Yoshida embarked on his first trip (of three) to the United States with his friend and fellow-painter, Nakagawa Hachiro (1877-1922), where they managed to arrange several exhibitions in the Midwest and New England, beginning with a large show at the Detroit Museum of Art displaying twenty-five works by Nakagawa and ninety-two works by Yoshida. The success of the shows financed a trip to England, France (for the Paris Exposition Universelle), Germany, Italy and Switzerland.
This watercolor appears to date to shortly after his return to Japan in 1901, or within a few years hence. It is painted on high quality English watercolor paper bearing the partial watermark J. What (J. Whatman papermaker). Stylistically it is similar to Yoshida’s early dated watercolors which are painted with misleadingly loose brushwork that belies his accomplished technique and suggests influence from Impressionist paintings. His early compositions often feature figures clustered at a focal point within an expansive setting. For example, two watercolors, Kagosaka from circa 1894-99 and Highway (Kaido) from circa 1901-03, both employ a similar construct. Likewise, the signatures and titles (if any) are brushed expressively on his early paintings; only a few years later the signatures on his paintings are generally neater and more evenly spaced. This painting, signed and titled Yoshida Village (Shimo-Yoshida) in the lower right, illustrates the rural namesake village with modest wooden structures lining the wide main street, in the distance the white conical peak of Mount Fuji is partially obscured a clouds. The village still exists as a district within Fujiyoshida City in Yamanashi Prefecture, and Yoshida may have been standing on what would become Honcho Street which remains a popular spot for viewing Mount Fuji even today.
graphite and watercolor on J. Whatman English watercolor paper, titled at lower left, MIKAGI, and signed H.YOSHIDA, n.d.; together with graphite drawing on paper, signed and dated at lower right, H. Yoshida, 1902, and titled Hachioji Musashi, both ca. 1902
watercolor 13 by 19 5/8 in., 32.9 by 49.7 cm
drawing 11 3/8 by 18 7/8 in., 29 by 48 cm
The reuniting of these two works in the Binnie Collection offers a tantalizing glimpse into Yoshida’s creative process. The drawing was found in an American collection in 2004, while the watercolor was located from a gallery in Tokyo three years later in 2007. It seems likely that Yoshida first produced the graphite drawing while on one of his annual sketch and hiking tours, and then worked it up into the watercolor at a later point in time. However, it is likewise entirely possible that he produced both works on site as he was well-known to paint en plain air as well. The watercolor composition eliminates the undefined elements from the sketch and clarifies details, paying special attention to the dappled light among the trees while enlivening the scene with the addition of figures placed at the center.
Yoshida titles the watercolor MIKAGI in the characteristic capital letters typical of his early works, while the drawing is signed and dated 1902, and titled, Hachioji, Musashi. The neatly compressed script on the drawing may have been added later, possibly by Hiroshi’s talented wife, Fujio Yoshida (1887-1987), who was also an artist and worked in a very similar style as her husband. The title being added later to the drawing, possibly by another hand, would help explain why the identifications do not match. The town (now city) of Hachioji is located in Tokyo Prefecture (which was formerly part of the Musashi Province) at the foothills of the Okutama Mountains with Mount Takao and Mount Jinba nearby, both popular hiking destinations . While there does not appear to be a location named Mikagi in or near Hachioji, there is the village of Mikage in Sagamihara City, less than 20 miles (approximately 30 km) away which is also a popular area for hiking. Avid mountaineer that Yoshida was, it’s likely he visited both areas, possibly on the same tour, and as such, it could be an understandable confusion of similar terrain. Mikagi can be a family name, or it can be translated as ‘Three Trees.’ Indeed, there appears to be at least two trees emerging through the roof of the structure itself, alternatively suggesting that Mikagi could have been a teahouse located in the area.
sumi ink on silk; dated Meiji yonjuyonnen natsu (Meiji 44 [1911], summer), sealed in red brush-form Hakuho, and signed with kakihan Hiroshi; with old collection storage number on tomobako, dai hyakuyonjuyon (no. 144), signed Yoshida Hiroshi, titled Fune, 1911
painting 50 3/4 by 16 1/2 in., 129 by 42 cm
overall 72 by 22 in., 183 by 56 cm
After spending much of the first decade of the 1900s abroad, Yoshida travelled frequently within Japan during the late Meiji-Taisho Period, including month-long tours around the Inland Sea, providing ample material for what would later become one of his most famous woodblock print subjects: sailing boats. While a tranquil sumi ink painting featured in both the 2016 Chiba City Museum of Art and 2000 MOA Museum of Art exhibitions seems to relate directly to his famous Sailing Boats prints which he utilized to great affect by varying the handling the coloration of the woodblocks according to six different times of the day, this painting, in contrast, exemplifies his tremendous virtuosity with the brush.
watercolor on English paper; signed at lower left, H. Yoshida; inscribed on verso in Japanese with pencil, #74 Tsukiyo no Fuji, ca. 1906 or later
13 1/4 by 19 7/8 in., 33.8 by 50.4 cm
In September 1899, Yoshida and his colleague Nakagawa Hachiro (1877-1922) from the Fudosha painting academy each bought one-way tickets to the United States. The young men were inspired in part by the success of Yoshida’s friend, Miyake Katsumi (1874-1954), who had journeyed to the States in 1897 and had made enough money selling his watercolors that he was able to stay until 1899. Yoshida was also prompted by a letter of invitation from the collector Charles L. Freer (1854-1919) who he had met when Freer requested an introduction from the Samurai Tading Company in Yokohama after buying one of Yoshida’s watercolors. After their ship departed in October from the port of Yokohama there was a fire onboard, but fortunately they, and their art, survived the ordeal. When the two arrived in San Francisco they went directly to Detroit and were disappointed to discover their potential patron was away. In a remarkable reversal of fortune, while sketching at the Detroit Museum of Art they met the Director, Armand Griffith, who took an interest in their work and organized a very successful selling exhibition at the museum which included 92 works by Yoshida and 25 by Nakagawa. A total of 40 pieces sold (33 by Yoshida), including onene large painting (brilliantly titled ‘Memories of Japan’) which was purchased by a special subscription by the citizens of Detroit for $500 (the equivalent of $16,750 today).
In January of 1900, Yoshida and Nakagawa built on their triumph in Detroit with a similar maneuver in Boston where they held an exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, raising almost $3,000 more. This was followed by shows in Washington D.C. and Providence, Rhode Island. They used the funds raised from the shows to journey to Europe in the Spring, visiting England in the summer and Paris to see the World Exposition where Yoshida had a monumental painting (nearly 5 ft high and almost 9 ft long) included in the Japanese section, and then on to Germany, Italy and Switzerland. Upon hearing that a group of four of his fellow students from the Fudosha academy were en route to the states, Yoshida returned to meet up with them in Boston in November 1900. The ‘Six Artists’ assembled the Exhibition of Water-Color Paintings by Japanese Painters which opened at the Boston Art Club on December 5th. The exhibition was covered in the Boston Globe and drew more than 18,000 visitors a week. Of the 285 works on view, nearly half sold and sales totaled $4,725 (almost $160,000 today).
This pattern was repeated when Yoshida returned to the states in 1903, this time traveling with the daughter of his adoptive father, Fujio Yoshida (1887-1987), who was also an artist (they would later marry in 1907). The ‘Brother-Sister’ tour began with their arrival early in January 1904 in Seatle and they traveled by train to Boston. In February they held a ‘Two Artists’ exhibition at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, followed by several exhibitions zigzagging in the region: Worcester in early March, back to Providence at the Deborah Cook Sayles Library on March 19, Walter Kimball’s Gallery in Boston on April 1, W. H. Stadden’s Galleries in Springfield on April 20. In May, three of Hiroshi Yoshida’s paintings were shown at the St. Louis World Exposition. By October they were exhibiting in Chicago, November was in Cleveland, and December in Pittsburg. In January 1905 they exhibited at Clausen Gallery in New York City followed by shows in Philadelphia and Washington D.C., then back up to Boston for a show at the Doll & Richards Gallery in December 1905. In the first half of 1906 Fujio and Yoshida travelled from Boston to Florida, and then on May 1st they departed for England, arriving in Liverpool on May 9th.
The extraordinary enthusiasm for the watercolors by Japanese artists offered in these traveling exhibitions, and the appreciation for works by Hiroshi Yoshida in particular, is the reason why many of Yoshida’s finest early paintings are located in the West. Remarkably, this view of Mount Fuji was acquired in England, and the paper itself bears a watermark which reads (from lower left verso): 1906 ENGLAND, where he undoubtably acquired the paper and possibly produced the watercolor based on his own sketches from earlier travels. The distinctive misty atmosphere is similar to several Yoshida watercolors dated from circa 1900 to 1907.
sumi ink and color on silk; rainy landscape with boat at water’s edge and mountain in the distance, signed in sumi ink Hakuho with red circle seal Yoshida Hiroshi in; with tomobako titled Uke sansuizu, followed by the signature Yoshida Hakuho hitsu, early 1920s
painting 50 1/4 by 16 1/8 in., 127.5 by 40.8 cm
overall 77 by 21 in., 195.7 by 53.3 cm
sumi ink and color on silk; signed with kakihan Hiroshi with red square seal Hakuho, ca. 1911 or later
painting 49 5/8 by 17 3/8., 126 by 44 cm
overall 85 by 22 7/8 in., 216 by 58 cm
As an artist of nature, Yoshida was unwavering in his devotion to producing images from his own personal observations and travels. He embarked on annual sketch tours, frequently to the region surrounding the Inland Sea. In early 1911 he was part of a ‘Ten-Men Sketch Tour’ to Shikoku and Kyushu with nine other artists (documented in the illustrated book, Junin Shasei Ryoko).
sumi ink and color on silk; signed with kakihan Hiroshi with red circle seal Yoshida Hiroshi in, ca. 1907-20s
painting 50 3/8 by 13 3/4 in., 128 by 35 cm
overall 79 1/8 by 19 1/4 in., 201 by 49 cm
In the period after Yoshida returned from his second trip abroad in 1907, he was increasingly becoming well-known in Japan for his accomplished watercolor and oil paintings and recognized as a leader among modern artists. However, Yoshida did not limit himself to Western materials and continued to produce numerous hanging scrolls utilizing sumi ink on paper or silk, in pursuit of his own unique hybrid of Japanese style modern painting.
In the seminal publication The Complete Woodblock Prints of Yoshida Hiroshi, Yasunaga Koichi quotes Yoshida reflecting on his creative process: “I have never met any artist who is painting work similar to mine. This realization made me perservere and develop my own style of painting.” And eschewing his contemporaries who seemed too enamored with Western art: “…when I saw Western art while overseas, I gained the confidence in maintaining my own style and developing it to the maximum, regardless of what other Japanese artists were doing.”
While his Western-style paintings, often at least begun on site en plein air, appear to depict faithful renderings of their subjects, it seems he allowed himself more artistic license in the scroll format, which were surely produced strictly in the studio. This composition exemplifies Yoshida’s modern impressionist style in the foreground and deft manipulation of the sumi ink in the background, successfully evoking a layer of mist lingering over a stand of trees with a fantastical Chinese-style mountain range looming beyond. A painting titled Mountain Stream (Keiryu) dated to the Taisho Period (1912-26) in the collection of the MOA Museum of Art utlizies a similar color palette with a stream and village in the foreground and distant mountains rendered in wash in the background.
sumi ink on silk; signed with kakihan Hiroshi with red square seal Hakuho; with tomobako titled Mouko sangetsu and signed with kakihan Hiroshi, ca. 1920s
painting: 48 5/8 by 13 1/4 in., 123 by 33.5 cm
overall: 78 by 18 1/4 in., 198 by 46.5 cm
MYosemite Valley (Cathedral Rocks)
oil on canvas; signed at lower left, H. Yoshida; with wood plaque attached to verso stretcher (presumably from original frame) inscribed in sumi ink with title, Beikoku Yosemite Kokuritsu Koen, Kasedoraru Rokku no zu (America, Yosemite National Park, Picture of Cathedral Rocks), and dated, Taisho jusannen, rokugatsu, Yoshida Hiroshi ga (Taisho 13 [1924], June, painted by Yoshida Hiroshi), and with circular collector’s seal PB PAUL BINNIE COLLECTION stamped on verso stretcher and frame, 1924
painting 17 7/8 by 13 1/4 in., 45.5 by 33.5 cm
frame 22 3/8 by 17 5/8 in., 56.7 by 44.7 cm
During Hiroshi and Fujio Yoshida’s North American trip of 1923-1925, they found time to tour the natural splendors to be found in the West, producing several inspired landscape paintings (some of which would subsequently become woodblock prints). Their travels took them as far north as Moraine Lake in Alberta, Canada, and they visited various American landmarks including Mount Rainier in Washington, Mount Hood in Oregon, Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, the Grand Canyon in Arizona, and this location in the Yosemite Valley, California. The view is of a distinctive formation of three peaks known as the Cathedral Rocks which face the towering El Capitan, the subject of a print in his 1926 United States series. This composition relates to a larger oil painting almost double the size of nearly the same view illustrated in the 1987 catalogue raisonné of Yoshida’s woodblock prints, as well as the 1996 Fukuoka and the 2000 MOA Yoshida Hiroshi exhibition catalogs.
Mount Breithorn
Oil on canvas
Signed H. Yoshida to lower left corner, ca. 1925
Painting: 17 7/8 x 23 7/8 in. (45.5 x 60.6 cm)
Frame: 23 3/4 x 29 5/8 in. (60.2 x 75.3 cm)
sumi ink on silk; signed in sumi ink, Hakuho, with red kakihan Hiroshi, ca. early 1920s
painting 48 by 16 1/8 in., 122 by 41 cm
overall 76 3/4 by 20 7/8 in., 195 by 53 cm
This painting seems to relate directly to two other published sumi ink paintings, Farmhouse in Snow (ca. early 1920s), and Snow Scene (ca. 1912-1926) featuring very similar views of a stream winding through a wintry landscape with bare trees and snow-covered houses in the distance.
Oil on canvas
Signed at lower left, H. Yoshida, ca. January – February 1924
Painting 24 1/4 by 18 1/4 in., 61.5 by 46.2 cm
Frame 29 3/4 by 23 5/8 in., 75.5 by 60 cm
In December 1923, Hiroshi and Fujio Yoshida departed for the United States on board the passenger liner Shinzo Maru in order to courier a traveling exhibition of paintings and prints to be sold for the benefit those suffering in the aftermath of the Great Kanto Earthquake of September 1, 1923. The selling exhibition included their own paintings as well as works by fellow members of the Pacific Painting Society (Taiheiyo gakai) as well as woodblock prints Ito Shinsui (1898-1972) and Kawase Hasui (1883-1957) published by Watanabe Shozaburo (1885-1962). All told, there were approximately 150 paintings and 50 woodblock prints; although one wonders how the prints were sourced considering that Watanabe had lost all his inventory in the raging fires which followed the quake.
Although Ogura suggests details were arranged from Boston, upon the Yoshida’s arrival in San Francisco on December 18th the ship’s manifest identified New York as their intended destination. Before continuing on to the East Coast, Yoshida enlisted the support of J. Nilsen Laurvik (1877-1953) the Director of the San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts who wrote to fellow American museum directors endorsing the both the quality of the material and the worthiness of its altruistic purpose. Wasting no time to traverse the country, the first exhibition appears to have been in New York where a small line item in the New York Times on January 27, 1924 announced: “There is being held at the Art Center, from Jan. 23 to Feb. 2, an exhibition of paintings by Japanese artists to be sold for the benefit of artists who suffered in the earthquake.”
While in New York, Hiroshi and Fujio both executed paintings of the Woolworth Building, the 1913 neo-Gothic skyscraper located on Broadway opposite City Hall Park and at the time, the tallest building in the world. In order to depict the building from a high enough vantage to see the Hudson River in the distance, they may have gained access to an upper floor of the municipal building at 1 Centre Street, perhaps the public cafeteria on the 26th floor. Fujio’s watercolor painting in wintery hues of blue and grey is of very nearly the same view, her positioning appears to have been slightly to the right of Hiroshi, choosing to frame her composition closer to the tower, revealing more of the facade of the New York Post office with its faceted domed roof in the lower left. Hiroshi’s painting utilizes a warmer palette, with the dark brown cityscape in the foreground contrasting with the low-lying sun radiating in glowing shards against hues of pinks and purple. The impressionistic effect in the sky calls to mind Yoshida’s print, Sailing Boat: Morning, which he would produce in 1926 shortly after his return to Japan. Remarkably, this painting of the Woolworth Building, perhaps Yoshida’s only depiction of modern skyscrapers, has returned to New York nearly exactly 100 years later.
After New York, the next venue was in March at the St. Botolph’s Club in Boston, where it was noted in the March 23rd edition of the Boston Sunday Herald, swiftly followed by an opening on April 6th at the Arts Club in Washington, D.C., where it was announced in the Evening Star that Yoshida himself, noted as an accomplished artist as well as a scholar, would give a talk on “Modern Painting in Japan” on April 7th at 4:30. The Yoshidas were likely heartened that Boston-based artist Lilla Cabot Perry (1848-1933, related by marriage to Commodore Perry) was simultaneously showing a selection of paintings at the Arts Club and was the guest of honor the previous day. Perry had spent four years in Japan between 1897 and 1901 and many of her paintings from Japan are not unlike the watercolors produced by both Hiroshi and Fujio during the same period. Gertrude Richardson Bringham (1876-1971), an artist who worked as the Art Editor for The Washington Times writing under her pen name, Victor Flambeau (and in her own name for the Washington Post), penned a complimentary syndicated review of the Washington show in which she mentioned the exhibition’s success first in New York where it “aroused great enthusiasm,” followed by Boston “where its popularity paved the way for the sale of works in Washington.”
Other venues followed including the Seattle Fine Art Society (August), the Cleveland Museum of Art (September 15 – October 15), Milwaukee Art Institute (November 1 – 20), John Herron Institute of Art in Indianapolis (Nov 20 – December 15), and the Art Institute of Chicago (January 1925). Ogura suggest there were venues in Detroit and Philadelphia but both locations have not yet been documented. By the time the exhibition opened in The City Art Museum in Saint Louis (March 1925), the woodblock prints on offer had dwindled to just 24 works. Through the contacts made with this traveling show, Yoshida would arrange a second circuit exhibition of shin-hanga woodblock prints primarily made after the earthquake which opened at the Brooklyn Museum of Art on October 12, 1926. The print show traveled to five additional locations (Montclair Art Museum, Worcester Art Museum, Art Museum of Syracuse, Denver Art Museum, and Dayton Art Institute) and featured 68 works by a several artists, with 23 prints by Yoshida including 17 from his America and Europe series.
Yoshida eventually adapted this composition into a small format print (approx. 10 1/4 by 7 1/8 in.) published in 1928.
PROVENANCE:
Yoshida Family Collection
Paul Binnie (woodblock print artist, b. 1967)
REFERENCES: The New York Times, Art Exhibitions of the Week, January 27, 1924 (Art Center, Jan 23-Feb 2) Boston Sunday Herald, Past and Present in Boston Art Galleries, March 23, 1924 (St. Botolph’s Club)
Leila Mechlin, Notes of Art and Artists, The Sunday Star, Washington, D.C., March 30, 1924, and April 6, 1924
Viktor Flambeau, Fort Worth Record-Telegram, June 1, 1924 (on Washington Exhibition)
Ogura Tadao, Yoshida Hiroshi zenhangashu (The Complete Woodblock Prints of Hiroshi Yoshida), 1987, p. 187 (Chronological History) Fine Japanese Works of Art, Bonhams New York, 19 March 2008, lot 5037 (Fujio Yoshida New York watercolor)
Kendall H. Brown, Dynamic Actors and Expanding Networks: The Rise of Shin Hanga in America in the 1920s and 1930s, in, The Women of Shin Hanga: The Judith and Joseph Barker Collection of Japanese Prints, 2013, pp. 43-55 Yoshida Hiroshi: A Retrospective, Chiba City Museum of Art, 2016, p. 289 (appendix re: 1924 exhibition)
COLLECTING THE MASTER: The Binnie Collection of Hiroshi Yoshida Paintings
March 14 – 22, 2024
Asia Week Hours: Mar 14-22, 11am-5pm (otherwise by appointment)
We are pleased to present our latest exhibit, COLLECTING THE MASTER: The Binnie Collection of Hiroshi Yoshida Paintings, assembled by the prominent contemporary woodblock printmaker, Paul Binnie for this 15th year of Asia Week New York.
Hiroshi Yoshida (1876-1950) was a Japanese artist, painter and printmaker, widely known throughout the world for his woodblock printed work. Part of the shin- hanga (lit. ‘new print) movement of the first half of the twentieth century, Yoshida’s prints were produced in the same way as earlier ukiyo-e (lit. ‘pictures of the floating world’); woodblocks would be carved by a specialist artisan following the design of an artist, and then printed in colors by a specialist printer, all under the direction of a publisher, who then undertook to sell the finished product. However, in Yoshida’s case, he eventually employed the carvers and printers directly, acting as his own publisher and even occasionally carving and printing himself.
Aside from this well-known print career, Yoshida had a very active life as a painter and exhibited in a range of Japanese government-sponsored exhibitions, private art society group shows, and commercial galleries. He also exhibited widely embarking on trips to the United States and Europe in his early twenties. Along with friend and fellow-painter, Nakagawa Hachiro (1877-1922), they arranged several exhibitions, primarily of their watercolors, at museums and galleries in the Midwest and New England to great acclaim. Yoshida would continue to make several trips to capture the natural landscapes throughout the United States and Europe.
A natural leader and innovator, Yoshida was arguably one of the most influential artists in his time and among later generations as well, as evidenced by this collection. The Scottish artist and printmaker Paul Binnie (b. 1967) began to build a collection of Yoshida woodblock prints and original paintings and drawings around 1989, when he purchased his first landscape print by the earlier master. In addition to the scrolls and fan paintings which feature subjects and motifs seen in Yoshida’s printed works, such as boats on the Inland Sea, and views of Mount Fuji, The Binnie Collection of Hiroshi Yoshida Paintings offers two drawings, four watercolors and eight oil paintings, including the original canvases for three of Yoshida’s woodblock prints, Breithorn, Ghats at Benares and New York.
We are pleased to announce the gallery recently received from the Yoshida Family Collection several works by Hodaka Yoshida (1926-1995) which are available now on our website!
Hodaka was the second son in the Yoshida family of artists. Originally guided on a path to become a scientist by his father, Hiroshi Yoshida (1876-1950), he took a leave of absence from his studies during WWII, and in early 1945 he began to teach himself to paint with oils late at night in his parent’s attic, experimenting with abstract compositions. In the early 1950s he began exploring woodblock printmaking, carving and printing the blocks himself in alignment with the creative print movement (sosaku hanga) which was finding new energy in the post-war period.
Hodaka would continue to experiment with different artistic and printing techniques throughout his life, later utilizing photographs from his extensive travels, and incorporating them into his printed works.
Paul Binnie: 30 Prints for 30 Years of Printmaking
To celebrate the release of new prints by Paul Binnie, as well as his highly prolific and accomplished career, we have assembled this very special online exhibition celebrating his 30th year as a printmaker.
This online show not only features the recent print releases of Bubble Era of 1990 and Tears (red-bronze variant), but also some of the artist’s most rare and sought-after designs, including such rarities as his 1994 Nocturne and the 2005 Butterfly Bow, both of which have long proven (nearly) impossible to acquire by his most ardent collectors.
To view these works and others in the exhibition, click here.
NEW PRINTS RELEASED
Paul Binnie
We are pleased to announce the release of an exciting new print set by Paul Binnie, The Moon Moth Suite, comprising of a set of three woodblock printed illustrations, Moon Moth Mask, Scarlet Sabre Bills, and Sea Dragon Mask. The designs are featured in a 2023 re-release of the 1961 science fiction book, The Moon Moth, by Jack Vance (1916-2013).
Binnie was commissioned by the publisher Cordes Press in the United Kingdom to provide the prints for a new edition of the famous and influential novella. The Cordes edition features three black and white illustrations which are based on Binnie’s keyblock prints of the designs, and there is also a (sold-out) luxury edition limited to only fourteen copies of the book with hand-printed color woodblock prints. Inspired by this unique project, Binnie used the same blocks to produce this small edition limited to thirty impressions of the suite of three full-color prints utilizing slightly variant color schemes embellished with the addition of mica, embossing, gold metallic printing, and extra bokashi shadings.
To learn more about this exciting new release, click here.
IN THE GALLERY
KAZUMA/KOIZUMI: Chasing Modernity
This Fall, Scholten Japanese Art presents KAZUMA/KOIZUMI: Chasing Modernity, which juxtaposes the work of two modern printmakers, Oda Kazuma (1881-1956), and Kishio Koizumi (1893-1945), both prominent members of the sosaku hanga (creative print) movement who shared an interest in depicting daily life in views of modern Japan, particularly the restoration and transformation of Tokyo following the 1923 earthquake. Although both embraced the ‘artist as creator’ ethos associated with sosaku hanga, they utilized varying techniques; Oda Kazuma was the leading color lithographer in Japan who also produced self-carved as well professionally published woodblock prints; while Kishio Koizumi was a dedicated woodblock carver and printer.
The exhibition is displayed in two parts:
Part One: Oda Kazuma features various landscape and figural works produced using different techniques including lithographs, as well as self-carved and professionally published woodblock prints.
The full index can be viewed here.
Part Two: Kishio Koizumi features a complete set of the artist’s monumental series, One Hundred Pictures of Great Tokyo in the Showa Era (Showa dai Tokyo hyakuzue), produced between 1928 and 1940.
The full set can be viewed here and individual works from the set here.
MORE ONLINE EXHIBITIONS
Meiji Period (1868-1912)
An online presentation of Meiji Period (1868-1912) woodblock prints in celebration of the Japanese Art Society of America’s 50th anniversary exhibition, Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan, opening on October 3, 2023 at the Asia Society here in New York.
Our selection includes works by Kiyochika, Yoshitoshi, Ginko, Kunichika, Chikanobu, and Shuntei, among others, and concludes with a group of fifteen prints from the collaborative series promoting modern goods, Collections of Famous Products, The Pride of Tokyo, featuring complex mitate (parodies) enriched by layered meanings and cultural references which are revealed by unlocking the rebuses (picture puzzles) and wordplay.
View the exhibition here.
View the exhibition index here.
Backstage Pass: KABUKI (Part One and Two)
Featuring a selection of shin hanga prints and related ephemera, this online exhibit offers viewers both a front row seat to the drama…as well as a peek behind the curtain.
View Part One of the exhibition here.
View Part Two of the exhibition here.