Gallery 3G: Takehisa Yumeji

The work of Takehisa Yumeji (1884-1934) is included in the shin-hanga sub-galleries due to his influence on the Shin Hanga movement. However, Yumeji belonged to the preceding Taishō Romanticism movement, an art movement which combined Western romanticism with Japanese styles.  He is best know for his portraits of slender melancholic women. Yumeji was also a poet; the majority of Yumeji works in the collection are from two books of his poetry, Narrow Path of an Alley and Roji No Hosomichi.

The first set of prints are from Yumeji’s 1923 poetry book, Narrow Path of an Alley. “Narrow Path" alludes to the title of Matsuo Bashō's book Oku no Hosomichi which would be familiar to Japanese readers.

The prints in this section are from Yumeji’s 1919 book of poetry, Roji No Hosomichi.

The images in this section were all originally attached to issues of The Ladies Graphic magazine which were published by Kokusai Joho Sha. The images were carved into woodblocks in the traditional manner. However, printing was accomplished with a mechanical press rather than the traditional rubbing of the back of the paper with a baren. This aided the efficient production of a large number of prints that would be required for a monthly magazine.

Addtional Prints