Bertha Boynton Lum Art

Tan Shi Sou, White Snake Temple Raised Line Woodcut Hand-Painted By Bertha Lum, 1924 Bertha Lum (American, 1869 - 1954) was fascinated by the legends and mythology of the Orient and wrote extensively about them. These legends provided the subject matter for many of her works in woodcut. Also known as 'Temple, Peking' the color woodcut by Bertha Lum was done in an edition of at least 45 impressions. She was in China on her sixth trip (1922-1924) to the Orient and her first trip to Peking where she studied Chinese woodblock printing and where she developed her "raised line" technique, such as this print. Lum would use the black "key block", printed on a sheet of thin Japanese paper and then attached to a new block. The black lines are then cut 'into' the block so they are intaglio rather than relief, like the first woodcut. Thin sheets of Oriental papers are then forced into the incised lines and a pulp is poured to strengthen the sheet. As the paper dries it shrinks and releases from the block (essentially a cast of the surface). The resultant Key Block lines are standing in relief. They are then inked with a black ink, which defines the composition. Lum then colors the surrounding areas with gouache. Each impression is uniquely colored. Because of this the image is reversed from the color woodcut. The Legend of the White Snake, also known as 'Madame White Snake', is a Chinese legend which existed in oral tradition long before any written compilation. It has since been presented in a number of major Chinese operas, films and television series. This is one of the temples in Peking that is associated with the legend. Signed at the bottom, "Bertha Lum". Presented in a black frame with a white mat. Frame size: 20.75"H x 15.75"W Image size: 14"H x 10"W Bertha Lum (1869-1954), née Bertha Boynton Bull, printmaker and illustrator, was born in Tipton, Iowa and spent her youth in Iowa and Duluth, Minnesota. In 1895, Lum attended the Art Institute of Chicago for one year, focusing on design. A few years later studied stained glass with Anne Weston and illustration at the School of Illustration with Frank Holme. In the fall of 1901 to March 1902, Lum studied figured drawing at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1903, Bertha married Burt F. Lum, a corporate lawyer, and their honeymoon voyage to Japan in 1903 was the precursor to Bertha’s exploration of and fascination with the Orient. Returning to Japan in 1907 for fourteen weeks, she gained an introduction to Bonkotsu Igami, a master block cutter in Tokyo, who disclosed to her the techniques of carving and arranged for her education in block printing. Though married, Lum was fiercely independent and traveled for extended periods of time. Accompanied by her two young children, her 1911 sojourn in Japan lasted six months. By this time she had a thorough understanding of color woodcut and opted for the traditional division of labor. Lum moved easily within Japanese society and hers were the only foreign woodcuts in the Tenth Annual Art Exhibition in Tokyo in 1912. She was awarded the silver medal at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition and and her work was included in the 1919 Exhibition of Etchings and Block Prints at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1921, Lum’s Summer was included in American Wood-Block Prints of Today at the New York Public Library and, in 1926, an exhibition of her work was mounted in the fall at the United States National Museum, Division of Graphic Arts. She was a member of the Asiatic Society of Japan, the California Society of Etchers, and the Print Makers Society of California. Lum authored and illustrated Gods, Goblins and Ghosts in 1922 and Gangplanks to the East in 1936. Lum was in California at the end of 1916 and moved to San Francisco in the fall of 1917, but the following years were interrupted with travel. Her most extensive stay in California was between 1924 and 1927. The 1923 earthquake in Tokyo destroyed most of her blocks and many woodcuts. Lum spent the late 1920s and the 1930s living in Peking, returning to California in 1939. She spent a great deal of time in China between the years 1948 and 1953. Bertha Lum left China to be with her daughter Catherine who lived in Genoa, Italy and she died at the age of eighty-four years old in February 1954. Bertha Boynton Lum is represented in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago and the Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago; the Jordon Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon, Eugene; the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas; the British Museum, London; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California; the Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers, New Brunswick, New Jersey; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Portland Art Museum, Oregon; the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, California; the Library of Congress and the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.; and the Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington. Bertha Boynton Lum was an American artist known for helping popularize the Japanese and Chinese woodblock print outside of Asia. In May 1869, Lum was born as Bertha Boynton Bull in Tipton, Iowa. Lum's father was Joseph W. Bull (1841–1923), a lawyer and her mother was Harriet Ann Boynton (1842–1925), a school teacher. Both of Lum's parents were amateur artists. Lum had a sister and two brothers, Clara, Carlton, and Emerson. Education and career: In 1890 she lived in Duluth and listed her occupation as artist. She enrolled in the design department of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1895. A few years later she studied stained glass with Anne Weston and attended the Frank Holme School of Illustration. From November 1901 to March 1902, she studied figure drawing at the Art Institute of Chicago and was influenced by the Japanese techniques of Arthur Wesley Dow in his book Composition, which was published in 1899. Lum married Burt F. Lum, a corporate lawyer from Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1903. They spent their seven-week honeymoon in Japan, where she searched for a print maker who could teach her the traditional ukiyo-e method. Toward the end of her stay in Japan, she found a shop that reproduced old prints. The shop sold her some woodcutting tools...

BERTHA LUM (American 1879-1954) GARDEN DOOR, 1929 (Gravalos and Pulin 93) Raised line embossed and hand colored print. Signed in pencil within the image. 14 3/8 x 8 7/8 inched. Be...

BERTHA LUM (American 1879-1954) THE SPINNER, aka The Weaver, 1924 Color woodcut, signed and with copyright date, & no. 1924 in pencil. Image 11 ¼” x 8 ¼” ...

BERTHA LUM (American 1879-1954) TAN SHI SOU, WHITE SNAKE TEMPLE (Gravalos/Pulin catalog number 83; illustrated page 43) Color woodblock print, Signed and ...

Oversized work of three men mounted atop camels who gaze intently into the distance at left, stars glowing in the deep indigo night sky above. A touching and subtle rendering of the Christmas story. There is a mystical flourish in the foreground that appears almost as a glowing ember, with smoke wafting before the travelers. Perhaps it is guiding them, as they seem to follow its direction with their gaze. The pencil annotation seems to read “Copyright 1918 by Bertha Lum...

Lum’s undisputed masterwork, and her only view of California. Green trees and shrubs cling to the top of a rocky cliff on Point Lobos. Everything is abstra...

BERTHA LUM (1869 – 1954) FROST 1918-20 (GP 50) Color woodcut, Edition size unknown. 17 7/8” x 11 5/8. One of Lum’s largest...