Detail of Hayakawa Ayunosuke’s tattooed back and arms

Utagawa Kuniyoshi 歌川国芳 (1797-1861), Hayakawa Ayunosuke 早川鮎之助 from the series Honcho Suikoden goyu happyakunin no hitori 本朝水滸傳豪傑八百人一個 (One of the Eight Hundred Heroes of the Water Margin of Japan), 1830-32. Color woodblock print. Oban tate-e. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017- in process

According to Sarah Thompson’s new book Tattoos in Japanese Prints, “the first Japanese translation of Water Margin (known as Suikoden) was published in parts from 1757 to 1790 and inspired several versions of the story set in Japan. Kuniyoshi’s prints of the late 1820s, however, were based on a more recent work, a new translation by the best-selling writer Kyotutei Bakin (1767-1849).” [Princeton has Suiko gaden (Tōkyō: Yūhōdō, Taishō 6 [1917]). Annex A, Forrestal J5880/4790 v.103-106.]

Utagawa Kuniyoshi added to the four heroes described in the book with tattoos and created eleven additional tattooed heroes. Thompson notes “The great success of Kuniyoshi’s first Water Margin series not only inspired tattoo artists but also made the genre of warrior prints, formerly a minor theme, one of the major categories of subject matter for print designers.”

One of these heroes is Hayakawa Ayunosuke, seen here damming the Ayukawa River in order to catch fish. He was one of the Ten Brave Retainers of Amago, who worked to restore the fortunes of the Amago clan after the civil wars of the 16th century.

This is an early edition of the print, with the seal of Kagaya Kichibei of Ryōgoku at the bottom, left of center. Popular demand led to many later editions.

Sarah Thompson is the assistant curator of Japanese prints at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Save the date for Thompson’s visit to Princeton University on Friday afternoon, April 6, 2018, when she will deliver the second Gillett G. Griffin Memorial Lecture.

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired copy 42 of Testament, with text by Colm Tóibín and images by Rachel Whiteread, one of a limited edition of 75 published by Galleria Lorcan O’Neill in Rome. They note: “Testament is the only printed reproduction of Tóibín’s original one-woman play written for Marie Mullen and the 2011 Dublin Theatre Festival. The book’s ten unique photographs by Whiteread were made by the artist expressly for this project.”

Writing for The New York Times 11/2012, Mary Gordon called Tóibín’s play “a beautiful and daring work. Originally performed as a one-woman show in Dublin, it takes its power from the surprises of its language, its almost shocking characterization, its austere refusal of consolation. The source of this mother’s grief is as much the nature of humankind as the cruel fate of her own son. Her prayers are directed not to Yahweh but to Artemis, Greek not Jewish, chaste goddess of the hunt and of fertility, but no one’s mother. Mary’s final word on her son’s life and death is the bleak declaration: ‘It was not worth it.’”

From 2009 to 2011 Tóibín taught at Princeton University as the Leonard L. Milberg ’53 Visiting Lecturer in English and Creative Writing in the Lewis Center for the Arts. He is currently Mellon Professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and Chancellor of Liverpool University.

Rachel Whiteread: see Tate review

Colm Tóibín and Rachel Whiteread, Testament (Rome: Galleria Lorcan O’Neill, 2015). 45 pages, including 10 leaves of plates. Plates printed on double leaves. The accompanying untitled print (“an edition for Testament“), dated 2014, has been signed and numbered in pencil by Rachel Whiteread and inserted into printed folded leaf. “Designed by Peter Willberg, London; photography by Mike Bruce, London; coordinated by Laura Chiari, Susanna Greeves and Lorcan O’Neill. Images printed by Pureprint, Uckfield; binding and letterpress printing by BookWorks, London; set in Plan Grotesque and printed on Naturalis Absolute Matt”–Colophon. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017- in process

No 38. L’Enfance no 2 [Childhood, no. 2].

Like many international print collections, Graphic Arts held a couple satirical prints after the French painter Louis-Léopold Boilly, acquired here and there over the years. One was even used at the top of this blog for a while. We have now acquired the original complete bound set of Boilly’s lithographs known as A Collection of Grimaces, including a title page and 95 prints published between 1823 and 1828.

In the Infinite Jest exhibition catalogue, Nadine Orenstein wrote:

“Long active as a genre painter and portraitist, late in his career Boilly began a series entitled Recueil de Grimaces that comprised ninety-six lithographs showing tight clusters of heads set against blank back-grounds. The first few prints were mainly studies of expression, but he soon extended the images into representations of social types ranging from beggars to art connoisseurs. These extremely successful social satires served as important sources for caricaturists of the following decades, including Honoré Daumier.” —Infinite Jest: Caricature and Satire from Leonardo to Levine (2011)

Here are a few samples:
No 39. Les Moustaches no 2 [The Whiskers, no. 2].

No 43. La Sortie d’une maison de jeu [Leaving a Gambling House].

No 84. Les Bossus [The Hunchbacks].

No 82. Les Nez longs [The Long Noses].

No 81. Les Nez ronds [The Round Noses].

No 73. Les Chantres [The Singers].

No 65. Les Cornes [The Horns].

No 61. Les Aveugles [The Blind].

No 49. Les Petits ramoneurs [The Little Chimney Sweeps].

Louis Léopold Boilly (1761–1845), Recueil de grimaces [Collection of Grimaces] (Paris: Chez Delpech, Quai Voltaire no. 23, [1823-1828]). 95 lithographs with gouache highlights. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017- in process. Printed and published at the shop of François-Séraphin Delpech (1778-1825).

See also: https://www.princeton.edu/~graphicarts/2007/11/the_print_shop_of_f_delpech.html