Shima Art Company

Research Update - 2019

By Kotaro Sumii

Introduction

The original research on Shotei.com documenting my grandparents' business, the Shima Art Company, was done 15 years ago. During the ensuing years, I have received communications from people all over the world, pointing out previously uncataloged prints and other important information. I have used HathiTrust's Digital Library Search and Google Book Search to uncover many references which have filled in many of the blanks of our knowledge. My partner in this documentation effort, Marc Kahn, was granted access to the Robert O. Muller Collections in the archives of the Freer Gallery of Art, in Washington, DC, where he found some previously unknown printed material and correspondence about the Shima Art Company.

Rather than attempt to re-write the previously published historical web pages, I have decided to issue this research update. Additionally, Marc and I have completely rebuilt the online catalog of prints published by the Shima Art Company.

Historical Catalogs

We have discovered multiple printed catalog pages. The information contained on these pages has been used extensively in our rebuild of the online catalog. Here are the links to those printed catalog pages:

Online Catalog

Our online Catalog of prints published by Shima Art Company has been completely revised. Here are the changes we have made:

  • Each page is now available in both the English and Japanese languages. The user can toggle between languages using the link in the upper right corner of the page.
  • English titles and the names of the artists have been modified, as necessary, to comply with the information from the above-mentioned Shima Art Company printed catalogs.
  • In the case of Japanese titles, if there is an original print for the respective design, the same Japanese title was named. Otherwise, a Japanese translation of the English title was used.

Early Years as "E. T. Shima"

As written in History of the Shima Art Company, little was known about E.T. Shima and the early days of his business. I found the first advertisement of E.T. Shima, shown to the right, which appeared in the "Sixteenth Annual Report of the Western Drawing and Manual Training Association" in 1909. This advertisement continued every year until 1915.


He started to place the advertisement, shown to the left, in a magazine “School Arts” from the October issue of 1910 and these advertisements were found in most of the monthly issues.


He also placed an advertisement in the “Annual Report of Eastern Art and Manual Training Teacher’s Association” in 1911, as shown on the right. He geared marketing largely towards schools by selling school art supplies as well as selling old and new (reproduced) prints from exhibition by loaning them.


Using internet searches, I was able to detect when and where the shop was located and what kind of items the shop handled. The Shima logo started to be used in advertisements from 1911.

Transition to "Shima Art Company"

After Kazue Shima married Hango Sumii in 1929, the trade name was kept the same, i.e., E.T. Shima, for a few years. They changed the trade name to "Shima Art Company, Inc." in 1932 and moved to 16 west 57th street, which was conveniently located in the art center of New York.

As shown in this advertisement from 1932, they still named themselves as importers. They dealt many Japanese prints mounted on Christmas cards. Subjects of them were birds, snow scenes, landscapes and figures. There was no advertisement for stencils and school art supplies mentioned. I believe they became Japanese print dealers rather than school art suppliers. Actually, they dealt many shin-hanga prints from publishers such as Watanabe, Hasegawa, Kawaguchi of Tokyo, and Unsodo in Kyoto. However, when the supply from the publishers was inadequate, they committed to publish their own prints, having their own seal imprinted and sold at lower prices.


I could not determine exactly when they became publishers, but, Shima art company began to publish their own prints sometime in the mid-1930's. In the 1938 advertisement shown to the right, they called themselves "Importers and Publishers of Woodblock Prints", stating that "during the last few years", they had published a series of horse drawings by Tannyu.

Publishing Prints

As written in Daikokuya as a Source of Prints, I believe most of their prints were produced by Daikokuya in Tokyo. There were no original prints for which the named artists collaborated with Shima Art Company. In those days, because copyright of woodblock print wasn't sufficiently protected, it frequently occurred that replicas were reproduced for works of deceased artists. I guess my grandfather cooperated with Shinnosuke Koizumi of Daikokuya to make reproduction prints which would have appealed to the Americans.

As shown in the Daikokuya as a Source of Prints page, examples of proposed prints sketched by Koizumi would have become Shima’s Koson-ish prints with the imaginary artist name, "Chikashige".

Here is another example how Hango worked as a publisher. The upper part depicts a test sheet, submitted by the workshop for Hango's approval. Within the margin, Hango wrote orders for changes as A; use a deeper pink color for upper part of cherry blossoms, B; make darker blue for bottom half of the river, C; omit the seal. The lower part shows the final version.

About the Seal of Shima Art Company

All the prints which Shima Art Company published had a red seal below the signature of the attributed artists. Each time, the seal was carved into the woodblock. The application of the seal was an integral part of the printing process. Therefore, the seals of the various prints are all slightly different from each other.

This picture shows the Shima seal on 3 different print designs from the "No Signature" section of the catalog (see numbers 03, 01 and 04). Looking closely, it is easy to observe the carving variations.


This picture shows the Shima seal on 2 different copies of the same Hokusai print. Since they were printed from the same carved woodblock, they are the same.

Artist Names

Kiyochika’s blue series (Kiyochika #01-08 in the catalog) was a successful publishing venture for Shima Art Company. All of the print designs were taken from the originals by Kobayashi Kiyochika or his student, Inoue Yasuji. Because Kawase Hasui's night scenes were very popular in the USA, it is probable that they decided to make all Kiyochika's reproductions in the same mode. I think it is rather recognized that, when making reproductions, the presentations strive to be more artistic. Several of these Kiyochika prints were exhibited at the "Beautiful Shin-Hanga - Revitalization of Ukiyo-e" exhibition held by Edo-Tokyo Museum. Ms. Shuko Koyama, the curator in Edo-Tokyo Museum, named this project a "blue series" in the exhibition catalog, so I followed it for the descriptions in our on-line catalog.

Most of the prints produced by Shima art company were reproductions from famous artists’ masterpieces, but, some were apparently original. Prints #01-05 of “No Signature” section in the catalog are good examples. Even Google image search could not find similar prints to them. They are beautifully manufactured in O-ban format and very rare. Some of them were also exhibited at the "Beautiful Shin-Hanga - Revitalization of Ukiyo-e" exhibition held by Edo-Tokyo Museum.

Among the items of Shima Art Company, the artists whose products and the original ones are identical are Harunobu, Jakuchuu, and Utamaro. And, probably, all prints by Rosetsu, Tan’yu, Morikage, Shunsho, and Hokusai are also copies from their originals. They were all published in Edo era.

Prints designed by the very popular artist Ohara Koson, by the way, were tricky. Shinnosuke Koizumi, who took over Daikokuya, one of publishers of Koson prints, from Matsuki family, seems to have manufactured copies of Koson using different artist names such as Seitei and Keinen. Although, Koson was alive at that time, I think Koizumi, who had acquaintance with Koson, asked Koson to allow Koizumi to make copies, but, using different artist names which would have been sold only in foreign countries through Shima Art Company. Or, perhaps Koizumi decided to make Koson’s reproductions without his permission, because he carried the copyright. Anyway, I suppose this case seemed exceptional.

Although there was not adequate custom to obey copyrights in woodblock industry in those days, I recognize that confusion has been caused in posterity because Shima Art Company sold reproduction prints using different master's names. So, you can find the original prints in the "similarity" part of each print listing in the on-line catalog. All prints were Google image searched and if original prints were found, they were mentioned with artist names.

Conclusion

In conclusion:

  • Shima art company committed to publish their own prints during 1930’s.
  • Hango Sumii engaged in publication with help of Daikokuya in Tokyo.
  • Most of prints were reproductions from the originals, however some prints were their originals.
  • Sometimes they used other artist names than the original artist.
  • The original source of each Shima print was investigated and mentioned in the "similarity" part of the print listing, if possible.
  • They sometimes changed colors and motifs which would appeal to the Americans.
  • English titles in the on-line catalog were based upon titles from their own paper catalogs.
  • The Shima seal on each print was carved as part of the woodblock set. Therefore it varies in detail from the other prints.

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