Kawakami Sumio (川上澄生) (artist 1895 – 1972)

Nanbanesque Behavior [南蛮ぶり]

Print

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Date:1955
Dimensions:23.5 in x 17.125 in (Overall dimensions) Medium:woodblock print
Links Chazen Museum of Art - bright yellow ground
The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo - photo in b & w only
Honolulu Museum of Art
Kanuma Municipal Art Museum of Kawakami Sumio - yellow ground
Kichijino Art Museum, Musashino
Nihon-no-hanga - private museum in Amsterdam
Art Institute of Chicago Description:This print may actually be from 1955. Merritt gives the date of 1945, but 1955 makes more sense. Besides, quite a few Japanese sources give that later date.

This print is illustrated on the cover of the book jacket of Helen Merritt's Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints: The Early Years, published in 1990 by the University of Hawaii Press. This image comes from the Oliver Statler Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago, but is not included in their online site. There is also another copy in the LACMA collection, but like the one in Chicago it is unillustrated online.

Merritt wrote on page 228: "Nanbanesque Behavior, 1945... for example, was printed on a background that was predyed a rich mustard yellow. The image was printed on the yellow paper in black ink mixed with animal glue to make it shiny. Other colors were added with opaque watercolor. The foreigner reclines on the bed with a courtesan, both smoking long stemmed pipes. Kawasaki was still in Hokkaido, the hinterland of Japan, when he made this print, but he was dreaming nostalgically about 'the crazy mixed up Meiji culture' in which he felt secure. Perhaps he was also dreaming of an idyllic future in which the West and Japan shared pipes of peace."

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The Kanuma Municipal Art Museum of Kawakami Sumio states that this image is based on an event in the life of the samurai Maeda Toshiie (戦国武将前田利家). The museum also entitles this subject slightly differently referring to it as 南蛮ぶり or 'Nanban first time.'

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This print is illustrated in a half-page reproduction in black and white in Modern Japanese Prints: An Art Reborn by Oliver Statler, #60.

Statler owned a copy and gave a detailed description on p. 197.

Ink impression colored by hand, 16 1/4 x 21 1/2 in. Published in 1955. Carved, printed, hand-colored, and published by the artist. Edition: indefinite (15 printed to date). Block: single block of plywood faced with shina; 1 printing stage. Pigment: the block is printed with sumi mixed with a little animal glue; Japanese water colors are brushed on. Paper: a kozo paper from Tottori Prefecture, dyed in Tokyo, and commonly referred to as somegami (dyed paper); the artist has made this print on both yellow and brown papers. Location: collection of the author. Notes: This print was suggested by an old illustration. "Nambanesque" can be taken as meaning European or Western, and the title derives from the fact that in the period pictured, about 400 years ago, both beds and tobacco had just been introduced to Japan.

Did you know that Kawakami was a house painter in Seattle? Statler described this artist's American experience on p. 91: "After Kawakami had finished college at Aoyama Gakuin in Tokyo his father summoned him and told him to go to America. 'Why?' asked Kawakami. 'For any reason you like,' was the answer. 'You won't starve, and I want you to have the experience.

He moved in with family friends near Seattle and, looking about for something to do, decided that house painting might be a good idea. After a brief trial, however, the house painters with whom he worked advised him that he just didn't seem to be cut out for that trade, and added that if he felt he must paint, he would do better to turn to art. Although he had always liked art and had even made a few woodblocks while in middle school, he had never had any training in art nor thought of becoming an artist, and this advice startled him. While digesting it he took a job in Alaska canning fish. Three or four months later he had about decided to go to a commercial-art school in Chicago to learn window display, when a younger brother died and he returned to Tokyo. After a term with an export firm he moved to Utsunomiya, north of Tokyo, and began to teach English, a career he has held to for almost thirty years."

On page 92 Statler deals with the apparently anachronistic element of the iron frame bed in this print in the Lyon Collection. "Digging back into the earlier invasion by the West, Kawakami has uncovered many curious facts. He thinks it may come as a shock to some Japanese to learn that their great general Hideyoshi (1536-1598) slept in a brass bed, of which he installed several in Osaka castle. Tobacco was also introduced to Japan about the same time, and old pipes are another of Kawakami's hobbies. 'Some of the big ones had a dual purpose,' he notes. 'They were designed to be used as weapons if the need arose.' Both beds and pipes are given the Kawakami treatment in one of his recent prints Nambanesque Behavior..."

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Illustrated:

1) in color in 近代日本美人画展 : 伝統木版画を支えた作家たち Exhibition of Modern Japanese Beauties: Meiji, Taishō, Shōwa, Riccar Art Museum, 1982, n.p., no. 118.

2) in color in Made in Japan: The Postwar Creative Print Movement by Alicia Volk, Milwaukee Art Museum with the University of Washington Press, 2006, page 40, #6.

3) in color in Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints: The Early Years by Helen Merritt, University of Hawaii Press, 1990, n.p. It also appears on the cover of the book jacket.

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There are other copies of this print, unillustrated, in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The one in Los Angeles is from an unlimited 1955 edition. The Art Institute of Chicago also a copy of this print from the same year and the same edition.
Related entities beautiful woman picture (bijin-ga - 美人画) (genre)
modern prints (shin hanga - 新版画) (genre)

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