About Shôtei Gallery

Greetings

Hello, and thanks for visiting!

The Shotei.com website is being built by Marc Kahn. That's me. I'm a collector of Japanese woodblock prints, primarily shin hanga landscapes. Shin hanga prints were produced in Japan, roughly during the time period covered by the first half of the 20th century, using the traditional collaboration between artist, publisher, carver, and printer.

In the course of my education about this art genre, I have found the internet to be a very powerful resource, providing access to a great amount of information, through educational sites, on-line galleries and auctions, chat boards, and email interchanges with other enthusiasts. Quite a bit of work has already been done documenting the shin hanga movement, especially regarding the more popular artists and publishers. However, it's still very early in the game and there is an overwhelming amount of data collection, research, and documentation which is yet to be done. I hope to take part in that effort and to share what I find. That's why I'm here.

The Mission

The mission of Shotei.com is to become both an educational site and an on-line gallery, with a focus on the shin hanga genre of Japanese woodblock prints.

As an educational site, the purpose is to provide a focal point for the collector community to investigate some of the lesser covered topics. It's my hope to get other collectors involved, making Shotei.com a repository for information coming in through a multitude of channels. To my knowledge, no one has ever compiled a complete catalog of Takahashi Shôtei's work. That's a perfect project for this site, and we've got a pretty good start on it.

As an on-line gallery, I intend to make some prints from my collection available for sale along with consigned prints from other collectors. Business will be conducted in a forthright and honest manner.

History

This is my second website. The first one is RoundWoodenBoxes.com, where I explain the research which my wife and I have done about our collection of round wooden boxes produced in Japan during the Taisho and early Showa period. This is the same timeframe during which shin hanga was flourishing. In fact, it was during my research about Miyajima, where most of the boxes were produced, that I became drawn to collecting prints. I found an on-line auction of Tsuchiya Koitsu's "Snowy Miyajima" and got hooked on hanga.

I have done a lot of work researching, compiling material and writing articles for the ShinHanga.net website. However, I never agreed with the idea of keeping much of the material on that site away from public access. That's why Shotei.com, as an educational site, will always be open and available to all interested people who care to spend the time browsing. I believe that the best way for us to move forward in our knowledge about the prints of this genre is for us all to do it together, cooperatively, as a community.

Going Forward

Takahashi Shôtei is my favorite shin hanga artist, and I'm expecting to increase the material on this site about him, both in articles and in additions to the catalog of prints and seals.

Additionally, I have become interested in other artists and publishers who have not yet been, I believe, adequately documented.

Some of the artists who interest me are Shoda Koho, Eijiro, Yoshimoto Gesso, Arai Yoshimune, Gyosui, Nishimura Hodo, and Bakufu Ohno.

Publishers which I intend to document include Hasegawa/Nishinomiya, Takemura Hideo, and Kyoto Hanga-in.

Of course, I'm open for suggestions and would appreciate receiving whatever feedback you wish to send me.


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