The Prints

What type of prints can you expect to find here at Mokuhankan as our catalogue grows? It's going to be a bit difficult to generalize about that. Without any question, the selection will reflect the taste (and prejudices!) of the guy running the show. What does he find interesting? For a quick survey, you could check the page of Surimono Albums that he made some years back. If you find those attractive, you should like what we are offering here.

What you will not find here, are 'famous' designs. James Michener used to write about the 'problem' in the arts of over-exposure of the big names to the detriment of that legion of men in every era, in every field, who shared similar talents, but who missed being touched by the magic wand of fame as it passed through their era. Put simply, it would be a crime to spend our efforts re-doing what has already been done to death when there is an absolute mountain of beautiful, interesting, and relatively unknown work waiting to be done.

But that brings me to an important point - is Mokuhankan going to be strictly a 'reproduction' house, digging up old designs and re-cutting them? No ... but there is no question that in the beginning, most of what we put out will be work of that type. Quite simply, it's all we are going to be able to afford to produce. The royalties that we don't have to pay to designers of previous centuries are going to go a long way to help subsidize this venture.

The idea though, is not to live in the past (at least not just to live in the past), but to breath some new life to the genre of traditional woodblock printmaking. As soon as we can afford it, we will be starting to include some modern pieces, and ultimately, hope to sponsor and encourage a great deal of such work. Hold your breath, please! :-)

Anyway, let's get to it. Please browse the current catalogue of Mokuhankan prints by selecting a genre or price range from one of the pull-down menus you see below. That will bring up a group of small images from which you can select catalogue pages one by one.

As mentioned on the introduction page, we are starting this on a shoestring, so the catalogue is starting with an embarrassingly small quantity of items - and will grow slowly from there. We hope you find some of our work interesting, and we certainly hope you will consider ordering a print or two. We are doing our best to keep the prices as reasonable as we can.

Thank you for coming this far, and please enjoy the images ... Feedback is welcomed; use the contact link located at the bottom of most pages to send private communication, use the 'Comments' section on each page of the 'Conversations' for communication with the 'community' at large.