Colour woodcuts by

YOSHIJIRO URUSHIBARA (1889-1953)

to his own designs, and after

Sir Frank Brangwyn R.A. R.W.S. R.B.A. (1867-1956)

Yoshijiro Urushibara was born in Tokyo in 1889 and came from a family of craftsmen. He was apprenticed to a wood carver and then joined Shimbi Shoin, a company famous for publishing high-quality, traditionally made woodcut reproductions of famous works of art. It is likely he worked on their famous 1906 five-volume publication of masterpieces from theUkiyo-e School.  

In 1910 Urushibara came to London with Shimbi Shoin to demonstrate Japanese printmaking at the Japan-British Exhibition held at Shepherd’s Bush. While here Shimbi Shoin were taken on by Sidney Colvin (1845-1927), Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, to reproduce the famous Chinese ‘Admonitions Scroll’ for the Museum. Urushibara and a colleague were chosen for the task. Urushibara ended up staying on at the British Museum making mounts and carrying out restoration until 1918, afterwards working for them on a freelance basis training other people in traditional Japanese mounting techniques.

Through his work at the British Museum and his printmaking demonstrations here and in Paris, Urushibara came to the attention of many British and French artists. Laurence Binyon (1869-1943) introduced him to William Rothenstein (1872-1945) and he made prints after works by George Clausen (1852-1944) and James McBey (1883-1959). Urushibara was one of only a few people who could handle all phases of producing a Japanese woodblock print; phases that were traditionally separated between the publisher, artist, carver and printer. He became a crucial transmitter of the practice to European artists, especially those who were already working with colour woodcuts, but many of whom – e.g. Allen Seaby (1867-1953) and John Platt (1886-1967) – had not had first-hand experience of Japanese methods. Urushibara also directly instructed artists such as the French printmaker Jules Chadel (1870-1941) and the Canadian printmaker Walter J. Phillips (1884-1963), who was introduced to Urushibara by William Giles (1872-1939) in London. Urushibara exhibited at the annual exhibition of the Society of Printer-Gravers in Colour (SGPIC) every year from 1922 to 1938, at the Societe de la Gravure sur Bois Originale (SGBO) in Paris at their 1922 and 1928 exhibitions and at the Royal Academy sporadically between 1923 and 1939. 

Urushibara’s most industrious partnership with a Western artist was with Frank Brangwyn (1867-1956) whose watercolours and drawings he made more than fifty versions of in colour wood-cuts. The two men had a long and fruitful friendship that ended only in 1940, when WWII forced Urushibara to return to Japan.

The prints below show the two sides of Urushibara’s work and cover his entire time in the UK, c.1910-1940. The first group are his own compositions; flowers, animal subjects and landscapes. The second are the collaborative prints he made after Frank Brangwyn. Urushibara was an outstanding craftsman (NB some of these prints have dozens of printing stages to them!). But his works are far more than just craft. His own compositions are beautiful designs, sensitively rendered. His interpretations of Brangwyn’s work manage to translate that artist’s watercolours into complex, many-staged prints while retaining Brangwyn’s vigour and theatricality.

This introduction and our cataloguing below is entirely dependent on Hilary Chapman and Libby Horner’s fantastic Catalogue Raisonne of Urushibara’s prints. It is a model catalogue raisonne and anyone interested in the prints below should buy it!

Hilary Chapman and Libby Horner, Yoshijiro Urushibara; A Japanese Printmaker London, A Catalogue Raisonne, Hotei Publishing, 2017.

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PROVENANCE

All works were acquired directly from Ichiro Urushibara, the artist’s son, by the previous owner.

NOTE: Some works are displayed mounted. However, all works are sold to include a frame.

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YOSHIJIRO URUSHIBARA (1889-1953)

YOSHIJIRO URUSHIBARA (1889-1953)

after Sir Frank Brangwyn R.A. R.W.S. R.B.A. (1867-1956)