Collecting Modern Japanese Prints. Norman Tolman
can be traced to our first sales to Yoseido and Kato, from whom we had bought so many prints over the years. We must thank them both for serving as sounding boards as to which prints by which artists should be included in this book. We are truly sorry that we could not include every one, but the final choices were ours.
A special debt of gratitude is owed to Terajima Teruo, who is responsible for the photographs of the prints in the book and our photo on the back jacket. We have long appreciated his efficiency, speed, availability, and, of course, his talent. His many years of expertise in art photography will be obvious to everyone.
Our deepest gratitude goes to the two to whom this book is dedicated, Eiji and Taka, who have been indispensable in helping the Tolman Collection achieve the respected status it has today as a major purveyor of contemporary Japanese art throughout the world.
Nagao Eiji, our gallery manager, began on a part-time basis while he was finishing his studies at Meiji University. That was in 1980, and he has been our right-hand man ever since. The many difficulties we have faced as gallery operators have been greatly eased by Eiji, who has actually become a fixture at the Tolman Collection, Tokyo. Starting with virtually no knowledge of prints, under our tutelage Eiji has come to know more about the world of contemporary Japanese prints than anyone else his age because of the active role our gallery has played with the artists themselves.
Yamamoto Nobutaka, our gallery assistant manager, came a few years later, in 1984. Together Eiji and Taka have formed a warm working relationship that has been instrumental in the smooth operation of our gallery. They have endeared themselves to our many clients from all over the world, and when they accompany us on international trips they bring their charm with them. Everyone knows them as Eiji and Taka of the Tolman Collection.
Here we want to thank them for their many years of devotion to our aim of promoting contemporary Japanese prints and, in particular, for their extra hard work during the writing of this book. It is they we must thank for their diligent labor in compiling the biographical data on the artists, much of which was available only in Japanese. We are happy to say that we feel fortunate in having "two Japanese sons" to help our two American daughters in all our ventures.
The Charles E. Tuttle Publishing Company deserves a multitude of thanks, which we wholeheartedly give. Beginning with the books by Michener and Statler, Tuttle has consistently sought out authors who have held a special affection not only for the art but also for the artists who make prints. No words can describe our feeling when we were invited by Nicholas Ingleton, president of Tuttle, to write this book. By placing us in such company he has asserted his confidence in our ability in a most positive way, and we humbly hope that we have met his expectations. In addition, we are grateful to Nick and his staff for help in editing, designing, and laying out this book.
Foreword
by James A. Michener
One of the most rewarding adventures I've had in the world of art occurred when I was a correspondent in the Korean War. On frequent leaves for R & R, rest and recuperation, I scurried over to Japan, where I met an extraordinary young man. Oliver Statler, from a suburb of Chicago, had remained in Tokyo after World War II as a member of General Douglas MacArthur's Occupation team. With both skill and an aptitude for making friends among the Japanese, he accumulated the rich materials he would later use in writing his international bestseller Japanese Inn.
In the course of his researches, which reached back to 1945 when he landed in Japan along with MacArthur, Statler, who had wide experience in the arts, had become acquainted with a group of Japanese woodblock artists who were remaking the traditions of that ingratiating art form, the ukiyo-e print. Those prints dealt with the "floating" or underground world of geishas, samurais, and sumo wrestlers and was made famous by world-class artists like Masanobu, Harunobu, Kiyonaga, Utamaro, Sharaku, and especially Hokusai and Hiroshige. Their prints won worldwide approval, with major collections assembled in Paris, in London, and notably in Boston.
But the classic ukiyo-e print, of which I would collect some six thousand, had become typecast, offering mainly scenes of Japanese life, portraits of famous geishas, and landscapes of Mount Fuji. The younger artists of Statler's day longed to become not Japanese artists bound by the old cliches but artists in the worldwide sense, free to use any subject matter that inspired fellow artists in Paris, New York, or Vienna. They rejected the designation ukiyo-e artists, preferring the term hang a artists, and this handsome book portrays their art and the revolution they engineered.
Statler was so impressed with their work that by the time I reached him he had already assembled a huge collection of their best work, and in time he would have one of the world's best collections of the Modern Japanese print. He was so excited by his discoveries that he launched me on an exploration of the field, and this present volume reproduces work by some three dozen artists I collected at that time. Before long I became an aficionado, and even formed fast friendships with several of the artists and carvers whose work I admired.
In those exciting days, when each visit to Tokyo brought new discoveries, the field was dominated by four artists, three of whom are not represented in this publication because their work antedated the time period covered by this book. Hashiguchi Goyo had produced ravishingly beautiful portraits of women from everyday Japanese life, but he had little effect on the larger movement. Munakata Shiko composed wonderful designs in bold black and white, while Onchi Koshiro, with a European taste welded to a strong Japanese tradition, did captivating prints that could have been done by Klee, Miro, or Schwitters, had they been Japanese. He would exert a powerful force on the printmaking of his day.
The fourth dominant figure in this early postwar period was Saito Kiyoshi, who is handsomely represented here (plates 2, 58). Many American and European collectors started their gathering with two or three Saitos, and his works still command attention.
My affection goes to the work of two men I knew well. Azechi Umetaro (plate 14) was a rugged little fellow who excelled in mountaineering and whose prints reflected that obsession. Hiratsuka Un'ichi (plates 5, 76) was a handsome old man when I knew him as a family friend, and I marvel at his continued productivity as he nears the age of one hundred. I love his bold use of black and the effectiveness of his depiction of Japanese architecture.
Since this excellent book is divided into three parts— "Then," "Between Then and Now," "Now"—it is obvious that most of the artists whose work I knew well and collected will fall in the first segment, and seeing them again gladdens my heart. How bold are the two Sasajima Kiheis (plates 4,91), how delightful to see again an architectural print by Hashimoto Okiie (plate 6). I once bought several strong ones from him as we talked in his studio.
I break into laughter when I see Mori Yoshitoshi's three wild rickshaw pullers (plate 8), and Inagaki Tomoo's Long Tail Cat (plate 11) demonstrates how the artist can utilize traditional line to depict a radically new type of subject matter.
I recommend enthusiastically the final portion of the Tolmans' book, for it gives affectionate accounts of experiences the couple has had as collectors. Each story is different, each is instructive as to how amateur aficionados matured into sophisticated operators of a Modern-print gallery that often commissions specific artists to produce prints typical of their best work. This means that this book is in some ways an advertisement for the prints they have on sale, but this emphasis can be forgiven because of the very high quality of the work they sponsor.
Were I still on the scene and collecting—the collection my wife and I did make has been given to the Honolulu Academy of Arts—I am sure I would want to add the following prints: Iwami Reika's elegant Silver Waterfall (plate 27) because of its imaginative use of texture; Kinoshita Tomio's delightful Gray-Colored People (plate 51) because of its amazing sense of being an actual woodblock; Mori Yoshitoshi's warmhearted Tsukiji Fish Market (plate 50) because it recalls old-style works that featured many human beings; and Nakayama Tadashi's Running Horses (plate 44) because it represents the joyous freedom with which these newer artists work.
There remains one other print whose artist I had not heard of, and a special case he is. Clifton Karhu is an American of Finnish ancestry and is thus a prominent example of the recent phenomenon in which foreign artists have come to Japan to learn the business of