Jonathan Borofsky

Man with a Briefcase (B)

1990

A scene from a vanishing Japan. Two Women Playing Sugoroku from "Comparison of the Customs of Beauties."; The Customs and Manners of Women Japan: Matsuki Heikichi, 1891. Woodblock ...

A scene from a series of ghost stories and spooky rural legends. Tokyo: Matsuki Heikichi, 1896. Woodcut in ink with embossing and hand-coloring in watercolor on handmade mulberry pa...

Actor Iwai Shigaku as Somenoi in "Denka chaya adauchi" (Revenge at the Denka Teahouse), by Shigeharu, Ryusai (also called Kuniyoshi) Tokyo: Horie Ichiba Wataki, 1835. Woodcut on la...

Japan: circa 1770. Woodcut on cream laid paper, 7 1/4 x 2 1/2 inches (182 x 63 mm), narrow margins. Laid down to non-archival board with scattered soiling and some adhesive staining...

The Battle of Dan-no-ura in Yashima, Nagato Province in the First Year of the Bunji Era (1185) Tokyo c. 1830 Woodblock print (nishiki-e) with ink and hand-coloring in watercolor on handmade mulberry paper, 14 7/16 x 9 15/16 inches (367 x 252 mm), ōban tate-e, the full sheet. In good condition with some handling creases. Colors are fresh and extremely vibrant. The right panel from the triptych by Yoshitora depicting one of Japan's most storied naval battles. An impression of this work may be found in the permanent collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art. The great naval battle of Dan-no-ura in 1185 was the final climax in a long series of bitter wars between two powerful families in feudal Japan...

Woodcut on cream laid paper, 7 1/4 x 2 1/2 inches (182 x 63 mm), narrow margins. Laid down to non-archival board with scattered soiling and some adhesive staining. Okumura Masanobu (Japanese 1686 – 13 March 1764) was a Japanese print designer, book publisher, and painter. He also illustrated novelettes and in his early years wrote some fiction. At first his work adhered to the Torii school, but later drifted beyond that. He is a figure in the formative era of ukiyo-e doing early works on actors and bijin-ga ("pictures of beautiful women"). While Masanobu's early life is largely undocumented, he is believed to have been born about 1686, possibly in Edo (modern Tokyo). Edo was a small fishing village when Tokugawa Ieyasu chose it as his administrative capital of the Tokugawa shogunate, and by the early 17th century the city had prospered and its population had grown to half a million. Masanobu appears to have been self-taught painter (though he did study poetry under Tachiba Fukaku); he is not known to have belonged to any artistic school. His early work shows the influence of the Torii school of ukiyo-e painting...