She's still photographing the new prints, and over the next few days will get them all into the catalogue. There will be around 15 of them in this initial batch.

To speak of Hasui is to speak of the Watanabe publishing company, but Hasui actually did a fair amount of work for other publishers as well, and it is from that group that our new stock comes, specifically from the images published by 'Kawaguchi & Sakai' and 'Isetatsu'.

In the case of the former, the designs have a long history. Originally published in the Taisho/Early Showa period in limited editions, the prints appeared on the market again in the mid-50's, issued by the publisher Shobisha. That post-war edition apparently used many of the original blocks, supplemented by re-cuts of those that were no longer useable.

Our prints are being made from that same block set, pulled by our associate printer Shinkichi Numabe. As I wrote on the catalogue page description: "We have really pushed Numabe-san hard to create prints that honour the quality and style of the original editions; we demand that he respect the colouring of the originals, and we reject any prints that show 'goma-zuri' (carelessly applied colour, resulting in a watery mottled effect - very common in modern shin-hanga reprints)."

To see the selection (five prints as I write this, more coming later today), please visit Mokuhankan, look in the catalogue for the Partner Shops, and select Kawase Hasui ...