Takeuchi Seihō: Seihō's Masterpieces, 1937-1942

Takeuchi Seihō (1864-1942) in his studio

Seihō's Masterpieces (栖鳳逸品集 Seihō's ippin shū) consists of sixty-six limited edition prints issued by Unsōdō Publishing over five years, beginning in April 1937 and ending in June 1942, produced from drawings made by the Kyoto artist Takeuchi Seihō (1864-1942). Using multiple printing techniques such as color woodblock and collotype, Unsōdō spared no effort in faithfully rendering into large-format prints Seihō’s watercolor and ink drawings.1 Seiho's Masterpieces includes scenes from the artist's travels to South China in 1921-1922, renderings of animals (domestic and wild), still-lifes of fish and flora, depictions of cultural events such as festival floats and kabuki, and landscapes of the Japanese countryside, including two prints depicting Mt. Fuji. While there are no historical records explaining how this project came about2, other than the 1937 Preface to Set One and the 1940 Publisher's Foreword to Set Two, it is reasonable to assume, given the artist’s declining health when the series was started in 1937 and his receipt of the Order of Culture in early 1937, that it was truly intended by his long-time publisher Unsōdō (and likely the artist himself) as an “elegy and a testament” to one of the greatest painters and teachers of his time.3

Displayed below are images of all sixty-six prints, part of the Spencer Collection of the New York Public Library, along with their titles and dimensions.4 Prints that are also part of this collection carry their catalogue number below their image. To my knowledge, this is the first time images of all the prints from Seihō's Masterpieces have been presented.

Following the images of the prints additional details on the series are provided.

1 As the original drawings have been lost or destroyed we can only infer from the prints which media were used by Seihō to create the original drawings.

2 Any existing documentation was lost when the publisher’s Tokyo office, where the prints were made, was bombed and destroyed during WWII.

3 Ehon: The Artist and the Book in Japan, Roger S. Keyes, The University of Washington Press with the New York Public Library, December 2006, p. 252 (text reproduced below.)

4 All dimensions are of the print's paper size not including the backing sheet.