Varia

A varied posting with help requested to identify some more prints and printmakers. 

Graz: Grazer Dom and rooftops 

Printmakers Carl Rotky (1891-1977) and Norbertine von Bresslern Roth (1891-1978) both were natives of Graz, but I'm very curious about the signature on this rather nice woodblock print: W. (Wilhelm, Walter ?) Hörgler, Hirgler ? (see also the Monogram in the block: WH) 

Unknown Printmaker: Girl with a scarf.

Carl Moser (1873-1939) certainly was intrigued by scarfed and bonneted (Brittany) girls, but also by the fabric and patterns of lace, cotton, dresses, cloth etc.  He for ever was experimenting, changing and altering designs, horizons and compositions seaking perfection as I am planning to show in next posting.  

And because of the attention to fabric and patterns this print reminds me also of prints by illusive printmaker Dagmar Hooge (1870- after 1921).

Until a good signed example or copy shows up only the help of a reader who recognizes this print may help to identify.

Hans Förster, another pioneer and true Orlik student

Förster, Hans

(Hamburg 09-02-1885 – 1966 Hamburg)

Graphic artist, illustrator, author and 
pioneer woodblock printmaker, 
Emil Orlik student. 

He was the son of Hamburg painter and graphic artist Christian Förster (1825–1902). A student in the “Kunstgewerbeschule” in Hamburg 1902-1904 he  was encouraged by its director Justus Brinckmann (1843-1915) known for his collections and books on Japanese art and woodblock prints to study further in  Berlin with Emil Orlik (1870-1932) in 1905-1906. Orlik since 1904/05 taught "Technic und Stil des Japanischen Farbholzschnitts" in Berlin's “Unterrichtsanstalt" of the "Kunstgewerbemuseum”. 

So far I was able to collect the names and (short)biographies of some 100 Orlik students, Förster was among his first students. 

Hans Förster is mostly known for his large woodcuts depicting local fisherman and working class people around Hamburg, his native and rural Vierlände area and the isle of Finkenwerder just opposite. It is recalled and described in detail how he stayed faithful to and followed the Japanese printing method he’d learned from Orlik. 

His best prints were created until the end of WW1 and he must have known and been inspired by the Brittany prints by Emil Orliks friend (and student) Carl Moser (1872-1939) who created his prints from around 1905 and also the pioneering prints by Henri Rivière (1864-1951). Rivière's experiments  preceded Orlik's endeavors in the noble art as early as 1890: without visiting Japan. (More to follow soon).  

On Finkenwerder was a small artist colony visited by famous painters like impressionists Thomas Herbst (1848-1915) and Friedrich Schaper (1869-1956) and marine painter and Berlin professor Carl Saltzmann (1847-1923), professor Eduard Steinbach (1878-1939) and his wife printmaker Louise Steinbach-Weinholdt (1879-1971) worked and lived on the Island from 1901-1916 and Gretchen Wohlwill (1878-1962), also working on the isle of Finkenwerder. Wohlwill was a close friend of painter and printmaker Eduard Bargheer (1901-1979) who was born on the island.

Förster wrote many books on “Plattdeutsch” the local dialect, and also illustrating them. It is said he lead the life of a neglected artist and an eccentric. He would have died in poverty and obscurity in an old peoples home was it not for a small allowance he received in return of a bequest of 100 woodblock prints left to the Altona Museum in Hamburg. An exhibition with his work was held in the Hamburgische Landesbank in 1978/79. His prints, when on the market, today fetching high prices. 

Hans Förster is buried in  Neuengamme-Vierlände cemetery near Hamburg next to painter Hermann Haasse (1862-1936) who from 1895 was a teacher at drawing in Brinckmann's  “Kunstgewerbeschule” and probably had been, besides a local colleague, his friend and teacher.

All pictures borrowed freely from the internet for friendly, educational and non commercial use only. 

(und danke Markus !)

Kanae Yamamoto

Kanae Yamamoto 

(山本鼎 1882-1946)

painter, founder of modern Japanese printmaking
(Sosaka Hanga), socialist and idealist. 
Theorist & Inventor of Craypas  pastel crayons.

Self portrait Kanae Yamamoto, 1915 & Vincent van Gogh, 1888 

In two of my last postings images by Kanae Yamamoto were used. I first read about this printmaker in Clives' Art end the Aesthete (here*). Then I stumbled over a picture used in Lillies Japonisme blog later finding, to my surprise, a "Brittany cow overlooking the sea" print for my Red Heads posting.  

Kanae educated and trained in woodengraving both privately and in Tokyo Art School started the movement of Sosako Hanga, simply said doing all the work on the carving and printing himself and not aided by staff. All started with this first print (Fisherman) in 1904. Pioneering and introducing a new way of printmaking without a black (tying the composition together) keyblock.


So, scattered over the internet there is information and are examples of Yamamoto's prints and paintings but nowhere the two are combined. There's an actual Yamamoto Museum in Japan but its digital museum/website (in Japanese) is hard to understand and  shows very few actual pictures. And there's the excellent biography by Dieter Wanczura (Artelino) you must read: (here*)

Compare Kanae Yamamoto's Brittany bathers with similar compositions by Paul Gauguin.  

From 1912 to 1916 Kanae was in France, studying in Paris in the Academie Julian (like Carl Moser (below) did before him) and working mostly in Brittany, sending home his prints to finance his stay obroad. So surprisingly we find Urushibara (arriving 1907) wasn't the only Japanese printmaker staying in Europe at the time. This may also explain the rather odd publishing dates of some of his prints. Created in France, they were send back and published later, some of them probably even when he was already back in Japan. 

Eugene Boudin (l) and Kanae Yamamoto (around 1914)
(It would be very rewarding finding which village Yamamoto is showing)

In Yamamoto's Brittany prints we'll find obvious influences by French impressionist artists. However most of them already history by the time he arrived. Vincent van Gogh (1853 died 1890), Paul Gauguin (1848 died 1903) Claude Monet and Eugène Boudin (1824 died 1884) the landscape, and famous for his cows, painter. 

 Paintings of haystacks by Claude Monet and Yamamoto

Bu surely many of their works will have echoed in the region and in Paris. But post impressionist painter Paul Serusier (1863-1927) I'm convinced he will have met. And possibly Maurice Denis (1870-1943). It is interesting comparing some of Yamamoto's Japanese prints with works of resemblance by his fellow artists and see how this earliest Modern Printmaker set the way the way for his colleagues

Kanae Yamamoto

Paul Serusier and Carl Moser

French (Paris) printmaker Henri Rivière (1864-1951) who stayed and worked in Brittany 1884 from 1916, so when Yamamoto was actually there, was probably the greatest artistic influence on the younger printmaker Yamamoto.

Kanae Yamamoto

 Carl Moser and Henri Rivière

painting by Maurice Denis (1870-1943), the Cow Girl 1893

Kanae Yamamoto

 Paul Gauguin and "the crashing wave"by  Henri Rivière

Austrian printmaker Carl Moser (who took woodcarving lessons from Emil Orlik) also spend the summer months and stayed and travelled Brittany between 1900-1907, the year Yamamoto arrived. Even back in Austria Moser  kept on making prints of Brittany girls, Britany bonnets and Brittany landscapes.

Breton girl: Kanae Yamamoto

 Breton girls Paul Gauguin and Paul Serusier

And ofcourse French printmaker Amadée Joyau (1872-1913) worked in Brittany at the time Yamamoto stayed there. I've shown him in the Linosaurus before (here*)

And Czech printmaker Frantisek Simon (1877-1942 when living and working in Paris from 1907-1913 also visited "la Bretagne" and etched her rugged coast. 

Two of his woodblocks probably published in Japan: left, in a combined cutting and engraving technique (click to see details !) a French provincial  village (which ?) and right a maybe Russian panorama considering the shape of the church towers. Yamamoto made his way home avoyding war troubled Europe in 1916 through Scandinavia and Russia. Note in both prints his soft and consistent use of a pastel pallet.  

Above two examples of Yamamoto's qualities as an oilpainter: a Brittany beach and a later Japanese beach scene showing he best fits the description being a Japoanese Post Impressionist painter.

 Paul Gauguin and Kanae Yamamoto

"On the deck" a print probably made when he just had returned in Japan. It is dated 1917 and is showing a Japanese Fisherman working his nets. This last example, the group fishermen at a beach at sunset (or rise), proof of his superior cutting skills. I couldn't find a date, but the way he created the different expressions, shades of gray and structures of cloth of the robes with a simple cutting tool is almost incredible.

Being a theorist and idealist Yamamoto also invented and created the first use and production of color pastels in 1925. Together with a course in drawing for children according to the theory of Jiyu-ga (Drawing without a Master) Perfected, these artist materials are in use world wide both as original Sakura Craypas pastels (read more here*) as dozens of brands worldwide.

This posting has been one my most elaborate sofar, trying to create something that wasn't there before. It's by no means meant as definitive, at best a starting point for further interest for others. 
Some pictures I borrowed and reblogged from "Japonism" and the "Blue Lantern".