Catalog: Fine Art: Prints: Woodcuts (9)

Poem 71-71 is a Maki depiction of 子 Child and is one of those large red kanji on a black background that Daniel Tretiak valled a Big Red. This one measures 12in W by 17.5in H and is no.13 of an edition of 153. It is in excellent condition.

Daniel Tretiak tells us that in 1967 Haku Maki produced an alphabet series, Poem A-Z. He did all the letters of the English alphabet. This is Poem W, a strong rendering of the hiragana for You. Tretiak says: The image has a bold white sun in the top half with two dashes of rain-like strokes. It is in wonderful condition. The print is number 23 of an edition of 50. It measures 17.25 inches square. Note also that this print is an early one which he signed in the left corner below his seal. Later he mostly signed in the right margin.

Poem 69-13 is an old embossed print. Created in 1969, it is in excellent condition. It measures 11 1/8in W x 15in H and is number 61 of an edition of 82.

During the 1970s, Haku Maki liked occasionally to do haniwa, depictions of terracotta figures that were funerary objects used during the 3rd to 6th centuries in Japan. This one—71-2—is a face rather than a complete figure. Created in 1971, the print is 50 of an edition of 151. It measures 5.75in x 8.5in. The print is in very good condition, with faint tape residue on the two top corners of the back, with no impact on the face.

Around 1960 Haku Maki probably did the Ox as a woodblock print. He was then a young artist in Tokyo. He may have done some Ox images before James Michener did his now wellknown book, but probably not many: 510 were used in the book The Modern Japanese Print". The prints of Japanese artists included in the book are large-ish, it is not embossed. The print is in excellent shape--it is still tipped onto the original archival backing that was in the book. In 1999 toward the end of his life, Maki did the print again; undoubtedly he did a new block and ran it off. This was an edition of just 75. Here I show the old and the new Ox prints; old is at the left. The appearance of Ox in this book presaged Maki doing 21 prints in Festive Wine by 1969, including an Ox. That one seems almost to have been dancing. 19” x 12”

These are three images of a very rarely seen Maki series,the Drop series.If any friend can send me images of Drop 1, 4, or 5, I would appreciate it.

Work 73-5 is a funny, lively snowman--or snow child. It is number 28 of an edition of 103 and measures 9.5in W x 17.5in H.

Haku Maki was a Japanese print master of the late 20th century. His prints at the time this one was published were strong on the use of kanji and abstract designs, as shown here. In this case; the design is abstract, it shows archaic images which we are trying to understand. The print is large, well designed and carried off. The seller Ashley Brasca of Winnipeg Canada wrote to me about this print: “It is special because of the texture and physical quality achieved on the surface. This artist has used special reduction print making technique on cement to create an exceptional implied texture to the surface of the print, there is also a strong depth of color too. I am an art teacher myself and i studied printmaking at University of Manitoba. For this reason i recognized its quality. ” Poem 68-3 is a good mid-60s Big Red. It is very abstract, and I still do not know the meaning of the ideographs in the print. It has no kanji in the bottom margin to help me understand what Maki was portraying. Such lack of information is not rare in Maki prints of this period. The left side of the print shows a figure for child; we are not clear about the rest.

Poem S B. This small and unpretentious print was a sleeper. Whoever sold it knew not what he had. Indeed neither did I until well after it came here to Beijing. It is a very rare 1968 Maki print. Not 1967 and not 1969. It has the kanji for Rope in the center and that is placed on a subtle but firmly done kanji for STONE - but the kanji is in there ass backwards. The correct rendering is in image 5. Mysteries abound.I have never seen the sub-title SB in a Maki print. I do not know what it means. We have seen FP but not SB. This is a rare image: the numbering 1/50 suggests this was the first image of the run--but it could have been the only one. Did Maki only do one? The paper that was ordered by Maki came from a paper maker he knew who prepared paper for him. (I do not know who he was.) The paper had the distinctive “moon surface” Maki used countless times in his prints. Note this is fairly early Maki: he employs only one splash. In frane 5 I show how Maki would have done the Stone kanji if he were not being cute: straight up (as made in Beijing). Size: 21.5 x 21.5cm.