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Scholten Japanese Art

NEW ACQUISITIONS 

Meiji Era Prints
From a Private New York Collection

Summer 2025
145 West 58th St, Ste 6D, NYC

We are pleased to announce the addition of a selection of Meiji era prints recently added to our website from a private collection assembled by a prominent American defense attorney who was one of the first foreigners to pass the Japanese bar exam and co-founded a law firm in Tokyo, where he lived the rest of his life. The trove passed to his son who shared his father’s appreciation of Yokohama and Meiji Period prints and continued to curate the collection both here in New York and abroad.

The Meiji Period (1866-1912) was an era of tremendous transformation in Japan following the Meiji Restoration, which ended the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and ‘restored’ the rule of the Emperor Mutsuhito (1852-1912, posthumously named Emperor Meiji) and a centralized government. The name of the era, Meiji, meaning “enlightened rule” signified Japan deliberate emergence from an isolationist and feudal society to a modern and industrialized nation, eager to catch up with Western powers of the time.

In 1853 Japan was opened up to the West by Commodore Matthew Perry (1794-1858), ending the country’s 220 year isolation policy. Western technologies in all aspects of life were quickly implemented, and these advancements can be seen in the prints that were produced in this era; both in subject matter depicted and the printmaking process itself. Artists inspired by readily available brilliant synthetic dyes and the dynamic growth of Tokyo and Yokohama produced urban scenes populated with foreigners and locals bustling together among new types of architecture and methods of transportation. Likewise, the techniques utilized evolved as some artists began to mimic etching methods found in Western printmaking – this can be particularly be seen in works by Kobayashi Kiyochika (1847-1915).

The declaration of war with China in 1894 stimulated a burst of productivity in the woodblock print market, with Kiyochika in particular leading the charge. Depictions of battles from the front, often in triptych format, became highly popular with the print-buying public, and served as a way to promote national pride and support for the war effort. Although many of the war prints illustrated new explosive weapons and modern technologies, the artists themselves did not see these events first-hand, but rather based their compositions on a combination of traditional ukiyo-e portrayals of warrior subjects and their own imaginations.

To explore this extraordinary collection, click here.

 

Chizuko Yoshida: A Vibrant Legacy

Summer 2025

We are honored to announce the gallery’s most recent works by Chizuko Yoshida (1924-2017) received from the Yoshida Family Collection and available now on our website.

Before joining the Yoshida family by marriage to the younger son Hodaka, Chizuko Inoue lived a life immersed in the arts. From a young age she studied music, played the violin, and performed in competitive dance including tap, ballet and Japanese dances. After graduating from the Sato Girl’s High School in Tokyo in 1941, Chizuko studied traditional Western-style realism including life drawing at the Hongo Art Institute, and oil painting privately in the studio of Kitaoka Fumio (1918-2007) who was also a woodblock printmaker. In the late 1940s, Chizuko joined a group of avant-garde artists who called themselves the Century Society (Seiki no kai) and eventually moved away from academic realism and began painting abstract compositions.

In 1956, Chizuko co-founded the Joryu Hanga Kyokai (Women’s Printmakers Association), together with nine other printmakers including Minami Keiko (1911-2004), Iwami Reika (1927-2020), Enokido Maki (b. 1938), Shishido Tokuko (b. 1930), and Kobayashi Donge (b. 1926). Active through 1965, the group provided a crucial vehicle for talented female printmakers to showcase their work. From 1987 onward, Chizuko held solo and group exhibitions both in Japan and abroad.

In the mid-1980s Chizuko received large commissions from corporate patrons. A major construction company funded a series of butterfly-themed designs corresponding to the seasons. The designs were issued in limited editions of 100 numbered impressions and were dispersed through the corporation for display in various locations such as hotels and office buildings. As the entire editions were purchased by the company, Chizuko retained only 10 or 15 artist’s proofs of each design, as such only proofs were ever available directly from the artist.

The following year in 1985 a newly established high-end mail order company commissioned a series of larger format butterfly and floral prints that were marketed as luxury collectibles, indicating that the editions were limited to only 20 to 40 available impressions, with Chizuko perhaps retaining the other half of the edition.

Later in her career, Chizuko blended zinc-plate photoetching with traditional woodblock printing techniques. Chizuko contributed this work to the prestigious collaborative series, One Hundred Views of Tokyo, Message to the 21st Century, a decade-long project featuring 100 prints from 100 artists, which was conceived and published by the Japan Print Association starting in 1989.

To explore these remarkable works, view them on the ‘Recent Editions’ page by clicking here.

 

PAST RECENT EXHIBITION

Binnie Meisho

May 1 – 30, 2025

We are pleased to present Binnie Meisho, an exhibition of landscape woodblock prints and paintings by Paul Binnie, celebrating the release of El Capitan, the latest addition to his ongoing series Travels with the Master, opening May 1 through 30.

Binnie Meisho includes over 70 landscape oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, and woodblock prints, featuring scenes that Binnie depicted from his many travels; including his years in Japan where he honed his woodblock printmaking practice, to famous sites in the US and Europe that he visited while following in the footsteps of his artistic mentor, Hiroshi Yoshida for his Travels with the Master series, to images of his homeland, Scotland, and Black’s Beach in San Diego, California, where he now resides.

Explore the full collection of these exceptional works online now by clicking here.

 

Recent Additions Available

We are constantly updating our inventory with new prints. To browse for works by artist, or search by title, series or keyword, visit our Recent Additions here

 

Past Exhibitions

Explore our past exhibitions online—each one a unique journey through exceptional art and craftsmanship. Discover them all here.

 

About the Gallery

Scholten Japanese Art is a private gallery specializing in Japanese woodblock prints and paintings. We offer ukiyo-e from the 18th to 20th centuries, including shin hanga, sosaku hanga, and Japanese-style woodblock prints produced by Western artists. Located in a spacious suite in the old Meurice Hotel, just steps from Central Park South, we enjoy meeting with visitors one on one in order to best learn about your interests and share the collection with you.

We opened its doors September 2000 in a renovated townhouse on New York’s Upper East Side. In May of 2003, Scholten moved to a private suite in the old Meurice Hotel located on 58th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. We initially planned to stay in midtown temporarily, however, we were pleasantly surprised to find the central location in the heart of Manhattan offers advantages in accessibility for both local collectors (who frequently have business in the area) and proximity to numerous hotels for out-of-town visitors. In 2009 we decided to expand to a larger space in the same building which was renovated to provide more exhibition space as well as a separate ‘Print Room’ devoted to our library and large inventory of woodblock prints. We organize at least two public exhibitions every year during Asia Week (both March and September), but we always have a selection of prints and paintings on view throughout the year.