• An <i>oiran</i> holding a bouquet of gift-wrapped chrysanthemums - Zodiac sign of the monkey - the 9th month
  • SAWAMURA TOSSHŌ I (澤村訥升) as Torii Matasuke [鳥井又助] with the severed head of Tairyō’s wife, Ume no Kata, between his teeth - from the play <i>Yanagi Sakura Iroe no Kagabone</i> (柳桜彩絵加賀骨) - trimmed print - left panel of a diptych
  • Third Princess (<i>Nyosan no miya</i>) from <i>The Tale of Genji</i> playing with her cat
  • Izumo no Imaro (出雲伊麿) stabs a <i>wani</i> (sea-monster - 鰐)
  • Bandō Shūka I (坂東しうか) as Seigen ama (清玄尼) and Nakayama Bungorō II (中山文五郎) as the yakko Yodohira (奴淀平) from an untitled series of paired actors on poem slips (<i>tanzaku</i>)
  • The Style of a Daimyō's Maid: Ueno (上野 <i>Ueno goten fū</i>) from the series <i>Edo Meisho</i> (<i>Famous Places of Edo</i> - 江戸名所) - <i>surimono</i>-like
  • Amorous couple before a screen painted with <i>nadeshiko</i> from the series 'Secret Conversations with Courtesans' (<i>Keisei higo</i> - 契情秘語)
  • Ichikawa Danjūrō IX as Danshichi Kurobei (団七九郎兵衛) from the series <i>One Hundred Roles of Ichikawa Danjūrō</i> (<i>Ichikawa Danjūrō Engei Hyakuban</i> - 市川団十郎演芸百番)
  • Sun Er Niang, the Witch (Botaichū Kodaisō - 母体中顧太嫂) from the series <i>108 Heroes of the Popular Water Margin</i> (<i>Tzuzoku Suikoden goketsu hyakuhachinin no uchi</i> - 通俗水滸傳濠傑百八人之内)
  • Arashi Koroku IV (あらし小六) as Omiwa [おみわ] at the base of a flight of stairs - the left-hand panel of a diptych from the play <i>Imoseyama Onna Teikin</i>[妹背山婦女庭訓 - <i>Mount Imo and Mount Se:An Exemplary Tale of Womanly</i>]

Welcome to The Lyon Collection!

Ukiyo-e Prints in the Mike Lyon Collection

Mike Lyon (artist b. 1951) was fortunate to have grown up familiar with Japanese prints. In his youth Lyon’s parents and grandparents displayed examples that certainly inspired his own artistic development. He began acquiring Japanese color woodcuts early in his career as an artist. The types of prints that feature most prominently among the many hundreds in Lyon's collection reflect the artist’s deep appreciation of the human figure and the expressive facial portrait. The vast majority of Japanese prints in the Lyon collection represent views of actors yakusha-e) and beautiful women (bijin-ga), and in particular the close-up, bust-length portraits of the same (okubi-e).

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