Many of you will recognize this instantly of course. It is the well-known 'Traditional Sailing Boat' design created by Hiroshi Yoshida, and used by him on a number of occasions. This particular version appeared as inserts in the book on Japanese printmaking techniques that he published back in 1939 (in English). A number of actual prints were bound into the book, with the accompanying text giving many details of their production.

By the year 2000, Yoshida's work was just coming free from copyright protection, so I was able to cut my own set of blocks for his design, and included it in the Surimono Album (#2) that I published that year. Those blocks - plus one more added now to produce some of the tones for the Night version - are now being used again for this new edition.

I have not done the printing work myself this time, but asked Mr. Kenichi Kubota to make this edition for us. He is one of the best printers in the country, having worked for many years for the Adachi company. He's sort of semi-retired now, but we cajoled him into taking on this job (along with some more that will be appearing soon ...)

Please head to the Mokuhankan site, and look in the catalogue under the 'Landscape' or 'Contemporary' categories to find the two new prints. And I can perhaps mention that for particularly enthusiastic collectors out there, we are offering a reduced price if you want both of them together!