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Mokuhankan Partner news ...
Posted by Dave Bull on February 11, 2012 [Permalink]
I have been a bit lazy here at Mokuhankan recently ... I have been remiss in keeping you up-to-date with our progress on another one of our 'fronts' - the Mokuhankan Partner project!
For those of you unfamiliar with this, I should perhaps give an overview. Our Mokuhankan catalogue is growing only very slowly of course, because I simply don't have many resources (time and/or money) to pour into it. We added the two senshafuda sets last year, along with a couple of reprints of my own preserved blocks, but at that rate, I'll be 99 before we get a good selection of prints in there!
But a year or so ago, I had an idea. What if I were to approach other print suppliers - people whose work I knew and trusted - and suggest that we work together to bring their prints to the market? They would gain by having the international exposure I could provide, and I would gain by having Mokuhankan become a much more interesting and varied place to shop.
As I wrote in my newsletter last year, I went ahead with this idea, and Mokuhankan now has three 'partners'.
Let me introduce them to you:
1) We now have prints from the oeuvre of the late Toshi Yoshida, newly produced by my friend Shinkichi Numabe, one of the most respected printers working in the field today. He works - in the Yoshida building - under the direction of Toshi-san's son Tsukasa to create these prints, of course using the original blocks. We've got a half-dozen of them in our current selection, but Numabe-san has more than 50 beautiful Yoshida prints available, just waiting for me to get them scanned and uploaded.
We even have Toshi san's final print ...
2) We also have prints from the inventory of the Takumi Hanga Workshop (the place where young carver Sato-san is currently training, under Mr. Motoharu Asaka). They have sent me this initial mix of items, some newly produced, and some supplied from the remaining inventory of the now defunct Takamizawa Company, one of the finest of the old print publishers. For the most part, these are classical ukiyo-e reproductions, but they will be providing me with more modern work too.
3) And we have a wonderful selection of shin-hanga prints and rare books supplied by my friend Shingo Ueda, who is a licensed dealer in kobijutsu (arts/antiques). He attends the private dealer auctions in the old book district of Tokyo every week, and frequently comes home with all manner of interesting treasures. He is going to share with me some items he feels would be of interest to Mokuhankan customers.
All the partner submissions are 'vetted' by me before they are included in our catalogue - we're not interested in just accumulating a large selection ... we want a selection of excellent stuff. And what a great start this is!
[Note: the above links all direct to the 'standard' online version of our catalogue. If you have a good modern browser, you can also access everything from our newer (slightly experimental) version ...]
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