Mie Gallery curates and sells original Japanese woodblock prints. We acquire prints from a variety of sources. Our favorite artists are: Hiroshige, Kunichika, Yoshitoshi, Hokusai, Kuniyoshi, Kunisada, Kyosai, and others. It's amazing that for not much money, one can purchase an original print, by an Ukiyo-e master, that has survived multiple wars, fires, floods, and generations of owners. On this RU-vid channel we have several original video series, ranging from simply showing and describing individual prints, to the "Unboxing Japanese Prints" series, where we open boxes of prints for the first time. It's always exciting to see the prints in person. We also add interesting information and backstory on the subject of the print and artist. Our goal is to introduce woodblock print artists, series, and individual prints to people who are interested in Ukiyo-e and beginning collectors. If you want to contact us directly please email us at miegalleryonline@gmail.com. Happy Collecting!
Nice! And yes, you are correct, it is still possible to buy original (old) prints that are affordable and in better condition than in well known museum collections, have some myself, because so many prints were made.
Excellent information, thank you so much! I have only bought woodblock prints two times (nine pieces, in total), back in 2012, from Fuji Arts. I only wanted a small amount of prints to display in different parts of my home. I bought an assortment of pieces from Meiji/Edo era to modern times...all were exactly as described. Fuji Arts is a great and trusted company to buy from, indeed!
WOW!!! I mentioned in another comment on your Chikanobu video that I own one of his prints on Tsunayoshi! I too was born in the 'Year of the Dog' and have always been a protector of dogs (and all animals). Once, when I was visiting family in Panama, while waiting for a train to arrive, I witnessed several men being abusive to a stray dog...I immediately jumped up and ran to the men and scolded them!!!
Amazing information, thank you! I own one of his original prints, 'Tsunayoshi,' from the series, 'A Brief Account of the Tokugawa Lineage.' Description: 'Handsome scene from the life of the Tsunayoshi, the fifth Tokugawa shogun. A beauty waits at the garden gate as a young girl greets her with a lantern, gesturing towards the house where the Shogun Tsunayoshi is issuing the "Shorui Awaremi no Rei" or Edicts on Compassion for Living Things, which prevented dogs from being killed. This act earned him the title the "Dog Shogun." The beauty smiles slyly as she tilts her head, dressed in a blue kimono bordered with flowers and grasses. A large cherry tree blooms in the courtyard overlooking a lake, with stepping stones and a lantern on a pole.'
I read somewhere that full body tattoos were adopted by firemen in Japan way before Yakuza, and for quite a practical, yet gruesome reason - so their corpses could be identified in case they die and burn badly in a fire, which (I'd guess) was quite a common occurrence at the time.
So cool, those prints are awesome! It’s like seeing the first graphic novels. It makes me want to see a series walking us through the full series of prints that tell an entire story. Also I’m looking forward to the Halloween themed content if it’s in the cards this year. I love to see horror themed prints!
Thanks! yes the backstory behind each print is very interesting and the artists throw in a lot of "hidden" commentary and asides. I haven't thought about a halloween video this year. I may do one on catfish and how they cause earthquakes, not sure yet. :)
I freely admit that I got really excited to see that this was another unboxing post, it has, indeed, been awhile (but just in the nick of time!)… I have to say that I greatly prefer the work of Hiroshige II (and consider him the true and worthy successor to his father-in-law!), than Hiroshige III, who not only focused on that painful “Meji Era,” with its black smoking trains, and steamships, and European fashions, and, perhaps worst of all, Europeans (and, of course, Americans!), but also sort of “phoned it in,” as an artist and print designer (but then, what should we expect from an obvious self-promoting huckster and a wife stealer?… Ooh, and ain’t I just the Ukiyo-e gossip?)… A Mie Gallery overview of Kobayashi Kiyochika would be exceedingly welcome! He is an artist that I find grievously under-represented in the various reference books and iconographies, but I just fell in love with the little black and white sample in Munsterberg’s “The Japanese Print”(which I expect you own a copy of), a more “genre” print, but highly evocative! Finally, those three collaborative prints at the end were amazing, and I understand and applaud your consideration of amassing a collection of those prints, challenging as it might seem! Also, an in depth look at Mie Gallery (who, what, where, when, etc.), would be great fun, although perhaps you’ve done that before, and if so, please let me know… I been a bit busy lately trying to make the world safe for old school undigitally processed music and childless cat ladies (we’re getting there!)… I glimpsed another Mie Gallery unboxing post just ahead in the feed, gotta run…
Thanks Glenn! 100% agree on Hiroshige II. Have you seen my video on the 3 Hiroshiges? I compare the work toward the end of it. I like the gossip ;) Good luck on keeping the world safe - I'm on the same team.
Fun fact. Printing backgrounds with mica was a technique lost (most likely banned) for over a century. Watanabe/Ito Shinsui tried and failed painting on mica (first state of "Spring", 1917). Hashiguchi Goyo, a ukyio-e fanatic, tried painting on glue and then dusting on mica and succeeded ("Woman applying makeup", 1918).
Hey, I really want to watch a kabuki play. What are some good resources to watch a full kabuki play? (Also, LOVING the this channel and these videos. I do Japanese style tattooing as my job and have found learning about the mythology hard to find the resources in English and explained so well. Thank you!)
Thanks for the support! There are some great Kabuki RU-vid channels. Check out www.youtube.com/@KabukiInDepth I'm not sure if they do full length but its a good place to start.
would like to comment that early hokusai drawings-prints after being expulsed from his master sunsho, looks exactly like late entire body of so called sharaku prints then we twnd to share a romantic view of context etc yes old secrecy even today we can only guess and not only in japan hings but many othrd but who knows' ?? just an opiniom maybe I m wrong etc but see context etc
excelent video..! congratulations! already commented in fb my theory as favourite considering the context the publisher was punished for printing humouristic prints about that shogun was bankrupt so he needed a new style to get up..unfortunately did not work as sharaku prints but eventually he rised again etc yes! loove mica things in prints! already in a video of printmaking a printer put a kind of second mould carving exactly on the print just to put the mica and, there are different shades from silvery grey to golden to rosy to nacar colour... etc....
Thanks Ariel! I read that theory too, that he was actually several artists working together. My main issue with that theory is that it's hard for several people and all those who know those people, to keep a secret as big as this. Interesting theory though, I wonder if we'll ever find out for sure?
@@MieGallery simple-publisher asks a team of artist each a different unsigned thewn hokusai young finished drawings then carvers did work nobody had to know nothing only last step is printed sharaku that in japan dialect osaka XVII means...joke...!nobody has to know since everyone works as a asked thing ex-big head of -x- unsigned etc all is for helping old men publisher severely punished etc so, who cared ???
Wonderful collection of books and great recommendations. There's so much scholarly material on ukiyo-e prints now than twenty or thirty years ago. I remember being elated when the Kunichika book was published and that was back in the late 90s. We're spoiled for choice now.
with Lithograph art prints are they good in Acrylic frames? my first time buying are and learning everything I can. I know I have to get non acid frames
@MieGallery will plexiglass "acrylic" frame be good for animation. I'm still learning. I just don't want the pictures to be ruin over the years that's all
@@travis10466ny Here's some good info I found - www.thegrumble.com/threads/help-best-way-to-frame-a-cell.30570/ you should do some research. Sorry I can't be of more help.
The cream rises to the surface with respect to print books i.e. the good books appreciate in price. Catalogues raisonnes for example have appreciated 5X or even 10X in price in only a few years. The catch however is not really being able to sell these because the info they contain is mostly not available elsewhere and so these books are far more valuable to keep.
Love your posts, Mie Gallery! Here are 4 books that I can’t help but recommend: “Worldly Pleasures, Earthly Delights” (Japanese Prints from the Minneapolis Institute of Arts), 2011, Matthew Welch and Yuiko Kimura-Tilford, which has become my essential “go to” for all things related to Japanese prints, a truly gorgeous book! I believe I paid $60 in 2012, and a huge bargain at that! The dust jacket alone (a detail from a print by Torii Kiyonaga) has given me way more than that in “Earthly Delight”… Another great book that I purchased a few years back secondhand, is “Ukiyo-e, 250 Years Of Japanese Art” by Roni Neuer and Suzuki Yoshida, 1979, Mayflower Books (originally published in Italian!). Like the previous volume, a quite beautiful and very encyclopedic approach to the subject that possesses us so thoroughly! Probably out of print, it was also priced originally at $60, and the used bookstore that I purchased it from quite fairly asked that amount (although I was able to obtain a ten dollar discount, as a “frequent flyer”), but if you can obtain a copy at any amount closely plus or minus $100, I think you’ll be able to sleep nights… “Japanese Prints” by Gabriele Fahr-Becker, 1999, Taschen (Where would art lovers be without Taschen? Most certainly at a severe disadvantage!)… mostly full color illustrations and a very knowledgeable text, a much more concise overview than the two books cited previously, but still well worth having, and since it’s Taschen, almost certainly still available… Finally, if one was trying to seduce someone with the wonderful magic and subtlety of woodblock prints, I think you would be hard pressed to do better “Japan Journeys, Famous Woodblock Prints of Cultural Sights in Japan” by Andreas Marks, 2015, Tuttle Publishing… This little volume (168 pages) is so very well written, and the full color selections of illustrations are so well coordinated that I can offer no serious criticism (except perhaps for the inclusion of numerous prints from the Meji era, although that is definitely my jag, as I am certain there are collectors who specialize in this period, whose only possible error is in not being me!)… When I first started getting into collecting Ukiyo-e, I actually had the opportunity to meet Dr. Marks at the MIA, and at the time I had no idea how much more I had to learn about the subject, and if I ever get another such opportunity, I will be a seriously apologetic “humble Tigger,” as I meekly ask him to autograph my copy of “Japan Journeys”… By the way, I saw Dr. Marks on a roundtable zoom type Ukiyo-e discussion somewhere on RU-vid (sorry, I forget who hosted it… Boston University perhaps?), and the good doctor was not at all tepid in excoriating those who use the incorrect name “Ando Hiroshige,” and quite insistent that the correct nomenclature had to be “Utagawa Hiroshige,” and while I know that Hiroshige is not your primary area of collecting these “Earthly Delights,” I did happen to notice in passing that you used the “Ando” designation (as have so many others!), and, except for the very earliest period of his oeuvre, before graduating the Utagawa school, any other designation is incorrect. Dr. Marks was emphatic and adamant on this point… I really do enjoy your always exceptional work… don’t stop on my account! - Best always, Glenn Jones (Minneapolis)
thanks for sharing..! well have the andreas marks in digital in docs got free the hokusai sangurokkei book...excellent! well exist 2 versions of original and repro-reprint 1913 it seems ehon japanese- have few sheets etc the taschen edit you dont have? of 100 views of edo is a marvel! out of existence by today had to conform with a mini edition pff! yes if you ever find a nice book please sell me here in mexico its almost impossible you know... congratulations! p.s. exist another oldie book 250 years of ukiyo-e by a guy that manages ronin gallery ny usa its from 1990s a big 5 kg book all in colour and covers at least one of almost all japan artist.. obviously out of print but got my book from an estate sell used , and in pristine state etc just for hihi... 10 usd hehehe...in 2019 heeee..!
Recently purchased book, British Museum research publication 231, Late Hokusai: Society, Thought, Technique, Legacy. Edited by Timothy Clark. Must read for Hokusai (and other Ukiyo-e) collectors, great research. Thanks, nice video topic.
By the way, when I was living in London, I had the fortune to go to the exhibition The Great Picture Book of Everything by Hokusai at the British Museum. It was wonderful 😊
Yes, Ukiyo-e artists helped fuel the Edo populace's interest in tattoos by including them in their prints of warriors and firemen. It was said that Kuniyoshi did tattoos at one point in his career - or maybe he just designed some.
excelent..! this video is perfect to release by next halloween..! btw..the pioc of the book uuupper right there exist a print of that..! by staged by danjuro..etc
I have the pleasure of being the first commenter (1st in 14 years of youtube 😅). Hence, this is a great opportunity to say your channel is incredible, an by far the best in the ukiyo-e topic. You allowed me to properly understand and deepen my love for this art. I just bought my first ever print much because of your teachings and videos. Thank you for your inspiring passion and sharing your love for ukiyo-e!
...and yes! thought ..what dishes were served at restaurants back then? the concept of entertainig leisure time combined with collecting prints make one think in that although in our time we have electronics tv etc back then they had alternatives! colorful, etc
Yes ! I was waiting for this one, my favourite artist for sure. I'm actually preparing my bachelor paper on him and Chikayoshi. Thank you for this gift !
Great! glad I could help. Do you have Amy R Newland's treatise on him? Do you have the interview he did with the newspaper? Let me know and I can get you the links. I'd love a copy of your paper when you're done.
Sir, thank you for giving me an education I would otherwise have foregone and for bringing me beauty and life I otherwise would never have known. Your channel is priceless.
I bought a woodblock print from a guy in offerup. I think it is a Kunisada print. He told me that his dad was a big asian collector. He is selling another one, and it is a print of an actor, and just like you said, Kunisada is famous doing prints of actors.
