Elizabeth Keith: The Printed Works
Pasadena, California: Pacific Asia Museum, 1992.
Paperback.
Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena October 1991 - February 1992 of the printed work of Scottish artist Elizabeth Keith (1887-1956).
Then a fledgling artist living in London in 1915, Keith was invited to Tokyo to visit her sister who had married Tokyo publisher J. W. Robertson. For the next nine years, Keith made Tokyo a homebase and found inspiration for her work in her travels in Japan, China, Korea and the Philippines. Her work during this time focused on drawing, watercolor, and portraiture. In 1917 her brother-in-law was asked to publish a book as a fundraiser for the Peer’s Club of Tokyo. The book, Grin & Bear It, contained 62 color lithographs of caricatures of Tokyo’s social luminaries executed by Keith. The success of the book prompted Tokyo woodblock publisher Shosaburo Watanabe to encourage Keith to consider producing woodblock prints for a wider market. Keith spent two years learning the techniques of carving and printing and worked closely with Watanabe’s artisans to produce prints. Her first prints appeared in small editions in 1919. By 1924, she had a total of 25 traditional Japanese-style woodblock prints in her portfolio. Keith continued to journey back and forth between England and Japan, returning to England permanently in 1936. Keith achieved her greatest success as an artist in the 1930s before the advent of World War Two. Her prints were reprinted and marketed in small quantities by Watanabe’s artisans as late as 1939. She ultimately produced in the neighborhood of 100 woodblock prints.
The catalogue focuses primarily on Keith’s print work, but a few drawings, watercolors, and an oil painting are included here. Also included are reproductions of the caricatures from Grin & Bear It.
Item #902327ISBN: 1877921076
7-7/8 x 11", stiff pictorial wrappers, 80pp, foreword by David Kamansky, bibliography, index, acknowledgments, fully illustrated in color, including a Catalogue Raisonne of 108 prints (3 prints/page) & 62 caricatures (6 caricatures/page +2), 6 full-page color plates in text, 1 full-page pencil drawing, 3 double-page color plates, with additional smaller illustrations in text.
A bit of rubbing to wrappers, clean, tight, near fine.
Price: $85.00