Japan's Meiji era was a time of dramatic cultural change. Industry, the military, transportation, fashion, architecture, the arts—all aspects of Meiji society embraced modernization.
Kamisaka Sekka (1866–1942) flourished during this vibrant period. Deeply rooted in tradition—he led the revival of Rinpa, a style created in the seventeenth century—Sekka was a progenitor of modern design in Japan, creating imaginative, innovative imagery. He cooperated with other artisans to apply his designs to ceramics, lacquerware, and textiles, and in doing so, he became an influential transitional figure.
In addition to his work as a designer, Sekka produced several suites of prints, published as multivolume books. In transforming his paintings into woodcuts for reproduction, he revised his style to suit the medium. The resultant dramatic, powerful graphics are imbued with his signature elegant and delicate touch and reflect the artist's melding of Western and Japanese design influences.
The Clark Center for Japanese Art and Culture in Hanford, California, holds a magnificent collection of Kamisaka Sekka's works. Chosen for this book are the complete sets of prints from three of his best-known publications: All Kinds of Things (Chigusa), All Kinds of Butterflies (Cho senshu), and Things from Many Worlds (Momoyogusa). More than 160 woodblock prints are collected here, with an introductory essay authored by Andreas Marks, director and chief curator at the Clark Center. Kamisaka Sekka: Rinpa Traditionalist, Modern Designer secures this seminal artist's legacy as one of the most important designers of the early twentieth century.

Kamisaka Sekka: Rinpa Traditionalist, Modern Designer

Arts & Photography

Andreas Marks

History & Criticism

Pomegranate

Japanese woodblock prints exemplified by such iconographic images as Hokusai’s Great Wave, Hiroshige’s Heavy Rain on Ohashi bridge, or Utamaro’s enticing beauties, constitute one of the most important and influential art forms in art history. This volume champions the publisher – the enabler – without whom the great artworks which influenced painters like Monet, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh and others, would never have been produced. Publishers of Japanese Woodblock Prints: A Compendium focuses on the production process of Japanese woodblock prints with an emphasis on the role of the publisher. This publication presents over 1,100 publishers, with comprehensive lists of publications by a total of 572 artists and facsimiles of over 2300 publisher seals, spanning a time period from the 1650s to the 1990s. The publisher entries include details on the residence of a publisher, his clientele, the period of his commercial activity as well as a list of issued print series in chronological order. This listing offers insight into the status and versatility of a publisher, as well as indicating the publisher’s specialities, favoured artists and the particular strategies pursued. With almost 600 pages of information on the publishers of Japanese woodblock prints, this publication is an essential reference work for scholars and collectors of Japanese prints alike.

Publishers of Japanese Woodblock Prints: A Compendium

Graphic Design

Hotei Publishing

The Tōkaidō highway, connecting Edo with Kyoto, was the most vital thoroughfare in Japan. Its cultural presence in pre- to early modern Japanese society led to the publication of woodblock print series, such as the widely known landscape prints by Hiroshige, that took this famous road as their theme. The prints of Utagawa Kunisada, the most sought-after woodblock print designer of his day, represent a different treatment of the Tōkaidō, in which popular kabuki actors in specific roles are paired with Tōkaidō post stations. This study discusses the phenomenon of serialization in Japanese prints outlining its marketing mechanisms and concepts. It then proceeds to unravel Kunisada's pairings of post-stations and kabuki roles, which served as puzzles for his audience to decipher. Finally, this study analyses Kunisada's methods when he invented and developed these patterns. Kunisada's Tōkaidō is a valuable visual source for the print collector, illustrating over 700 prints and it has been selected for an Honorable Mention at the 2014 IFPDA (International Fine Print Dealers Association) Book Award.

Kunisada's Tōkaidō: Riddles in Japanese Woodblock Prints

Brill Hotei

Genji's world in Japanese Woodblock Prints provides the first comprehensive overview of Genji prints, an exceptional subject and publishing phenomenon among Japanese woodblock prints that gives insight into nineteenth-century Japan and its art practices. In the late 1820s, when the writer Ryūtei Tanehiko (1783-1842), the print designer and book illustrator Utagawa Kunisada (1786-1865) and the publisher Tsuruya Kiemon sat down together in Edo to plot the inaugural chapter of the serial novel A Rustic Genji by a Fraudulent Murasaki (Nise Murasaki inaka Genji), it is doubtful that any one of them envisioned that their actions would generate a new genre in Japanese woodblock prints that would flourish until the turn of the century, Genjie ("Genji pictures"). During these sixty years, over 1,300 original designs were created, of which many were very popular at their time of release. The story of A Rustic Genji, set in fifteenth-century Japan, is in many respects drawn from Murasaki Shikibu's (c.973-1014/25) classic novel The Tale of Genji from the early eleventh century. As the foremost collection of prints of this subject, the extensive holdings of Paulette and Jack Lantz provided the majority of images necessary for this publication.

Genji's World in Japanese Woodblock Prints

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Andreas Marks. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Andreas Marks

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Andreas Marks. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Kamisaka Sekka: Rinpa Traditionalist, Modern Designer

Publishers of Japanese Woodblock Prints: A Compendium

Kunisada's Tōkaidō: Riddles in Japanese Woodblock Prints

Genji's World in Japanese Woodblock Prints