Catalog (279)

In the mid-1960s, Haku Maki was firmly launching his career as an important Japanese print maker. He did a series of prints of which a long and key series was the Alphabet A – Z. In turn, the Alphabet was the first series of what came to be many series of prints, all of which Maki called the Poem series. Prints in the Poem series continued to be produced until 1972. He produced all of the Alphabet in 1966 or part of it in that year and part in the next. Even at this old age I do not know the precise years. Furthermore, after a long effort of collecting the series, I do not have images for all 26 letters. I have never seen Poems G I J K L M N O S. The images are some of Maki’s quite good prints but none laid the ground work for important other work. I cannot make a case that Poem U,a square woman, is a strong example of what the kanji for woman should be. The pink sun and the quarter moon used in Poem D were used later on but I do not feel that is because they were used successfully in this series. The black and white image is from David J.Finkelstein in NY. Here we show Poem A B C D E F H P Poem D's crescent moon appeared elsewhere. We show one example. C-1 was re-discovered in a chance find in our files. It is prime Japanese hieroglyphics: hoki moji or a kind of pointillism. Copyright 2013 Daniel Tretiak

Q R T U V W X Y (*) Z Poem T is a distant Predecessor of image 10 Most if not all the prints in this series were sold through Red Lantern Gallery in Kyoto. missing J K L M N O - other than G and S. U is clearly a predecessor of Poem 59-55

This wonderful print was a gift to Daniel Tretiak and me on the occasion of our wedding in June 1964.

This colorful print is an early Maki embossed print. It is a quite small print done in a very low run. Only 30 copies were made. Maki started doing 50 copies by 1962. Earlier he may have lacked the confidence to do runs of that size so he did 30 as shown here The three red suns are dramatic, The print is signed in white ink, an early Maki touch. The 3 suns shimmer. The title is in kanji – a rare Maki style. This is Ji hao 31 [Signal 31]. The paper is double thick, an early use of such paper by Maki. The horizontal print measures 21in x 9in.

In 1976 Haku Maki did his eight-volume San Mon Ban--a total of 96 different embossed images. These included many items Maki had just used, would use soon and used later. I first show images of two prints like those in San Mon Ban but slightly larger. Then two images of insects in San Mon Ban and then 4 images of insects long hidden in my archives--even to me. These might all be called Maki Lite. The two shown here are Insect 2 Fleas; Insect 3 ants There is also a simple Insect and another Insect 4 ants. All reportedly had editions of 100 but I have never seen them except in archive and I do not have the actual print.

The Portland Art Museum has very recently begun to put its holdings of prints of Haku Maki on its site. These cover a wide range of Maki art: from the very earliest days of his work until the 1980s. The listing is particularly exciting because it shows several very early prints I have never seen. These are shown in the first 3 images of this listing. At the beginning, Maki’s images were abstract, embossed and small editions. We see the earliest known Woman image, an apple and a Work image that I still cannot explain. Of importance to other Maki collectors and me is an image of Mt Fuji which I had not seen before and one of 2 insects in the style of San Mon Ban images but slightly larger in size. There will be more coming on line soon. I thank Todd Burke for directing me to this source and Maribeth Graybill and Amanda Kohn for making it happen. Daniel Tretiak Copyright 2013 The museum has about 75 Maki prints; about 40 are on line and available for viewing in Portland Oregon The first 3 images of this listing http://www.portlandartmuseum.us/mwebcgi/mweb.exe?request=keyword;keyword=Haku%20Maki

Spectacular find set of 6: cups and saucers and teapot. all in very good condition. One tiny nick on one saucer.

This Maki print has had a charmed existence. It was printed in Japan in the mid-70s, just as Maki was beginning to leave the production of prints with kanji as the main theme and start doing then with Ceramics, mainly in the Collection series. This is the second print of his long ceramics series – some of which were simply entitled as this is with the year 75-59. This was done in 1975 and was a quite large edition 201. This one is number 5 of 201.The print was first distributed by Red Lantern Gallery in Kyoto. Whoever bought it made sure it would survive a long time. It was framed and matted by the best framer of the day in Tokyo, Kato. It stayed in Japan from framing until being sold recently at an auction in Tokyo. The print shows a dramatic mustard yellow vase in the center and a nice red persimmon off to the left. In the Maki style of seeing balance: to the right is a signature in white and the Maki seal. Maki used this white ink squiggle about a dozen times in the 70s. The leaves of the persimmon are tipped with a Japanese lacquer to make them glisten as in the autumn light. The print is dramatic and calm. It has finished traveling for a while. It now resides in Beijing next to other Maki prints. It is a kind of reunion for all. Frame 8 shows the original Red Lantern catalogue with this image.

The bottom margin states this is 39/777 but did Maki really do that many and if so where are they? This is a late-in-life Maki print. Where did this idea come from? A sunflower! I know van Gogh did quite a few famous paintings depicting many sunflowers, all realistic paintings. The Japanese printmaker Tadashi Nakayama did many different takes on Sunflowers. These were realistic depictions. Nakayama did fewer. Maki did this one and it was quite abstract It was the only Sunflower he did. It came late in life; it is a silk screen effort and interesting if not compelling. He used yellow and blue to depict the flower in this. I do not believe Maki did 777 of this or any image.

Daniel Tretiak's Research Note 12 took a look back at Haku Maki's works from 1965 to 1970.

In 1970 quite suddenly Haku Maki started producing truly large prints. They were dramatic and somewhat unexpected, all at least 24in x 24in and extended in size to 35in x 35in. His huge print of a woman is 36in x 72in. All of these were created in 1970. Then no Big ones until Big Mu done in 1973. Then no more huge ones. What happened to Maki? What happened to the supply of paper? This Poem 70-10 is pretty large--17.5in W x 24.5in H--but it was succeeded by others even larger.

Another of Maki's all-white prints, this one is of a Chinese coin. wu wei zhi zu Frame 5 shows the Han dynasty coin which inspired this 1981 print.

This is Daniel Tretiak's note about Maki huge print Poem-Woman, which is a horizontal print that measures 3ft x 6ft. His note is in the photos that are a part of this entry. Here he described photos that he was presenting along with his note. He said: Frame 8 is the same image but done with a yellow sun and purple moon. It is 33/50. This suggests many of the first 33 and then some were done this way; then Maki did not use these colors. I do not own this print. The paper has the same wavy condition that Huge Woman had before restoring; in frame 9 I show the Huge Nothing.It is in the Portland Museum of Art. The last image is Work 73-54 (Fish) 54/54. NOTE: Dan Tretiak went on to acquire both Poem Woman and Work 73-54 Fish.

If the Master could do a Seat series in the 1960s he must have decided to do a Sink series in 1972. First, it did a small image in 1972 and then he ended the year with a larger image depicting the same sink theme. It is the one pictured here, Poem 72-61 Sink-S. It measures 9.75sq in.

Nearly a century old, this Noritake dessert set contains plates, cups and saucers, coffee pot, creamer, and sugar bowl (no cover). This set was purchased in the US between 1935 and 1937.

Maki’s earliest works were done in the late 1950s and remained rather unknown until the late 1960s. He first started producing prints using red ink in 1965 and this is probably the first example. It is also what I call a Big Red. It is very abstract and it fills up the whole sheet. Maki wanted his prints to have balance. This has it: the red field is pierced by three blue squares: two on the left side of the orange meteor-like strokes, and one on the right side. The field is composed of small squares of horizontal and/or vertical strokes.The print is 16.1 x 22.9inches(41 x 58.4cm). I think this print is better than Heap-like prints but on a par with the Emanation 65B print shown in the last frame of this listing. This Big Red has a weaker paper than later prints; why? Michael Minckler holds the view that the reason is Maki was still working his way toward the two-layer paper that came to characterize much of his work from 1966 on. Two layers make for a stronger paper and allows for larger prints. A thinner paper does not lend itself to large prints--which Maki evidently wanted to make. By the same token the image in frame 8 of a Maki print done in 1958 is embossed but on paper thinner than the 1965 print shown here:Maki was working his way to The Maki Style. Proportion 10 done in 1966 also shows the embossing in full play with bold abstract calligraphy. The yellow print Proportion 10 is 50 x 40 cm.It is a very early print using two sheets of paper.

Work 73-56 L (fish). This is the second of Maki’s three huge prints that I have owned. This is Work 73-56 L (fish). Several aspects of this image are intriguing. My archive of Maki prints reveals that Maki produced over 100 different images in 1973. I have been able to account for many of them: 1 to 50 and 99 to 110. I had never known what went in the middle. Now I know at least one was work 73-56, the third huge print that Maki did. It is 3 x 6 feet. All the others—73-57 to 73-98—remain to be revealed by others. This print is laudable not only for its huge size. The third of Maki‘s thee huge prints, it lacks a sun or moon or even a color splash. Frame 12 shows the black splash. The space is admirably taken up by the calligraphy of the character. One colleague says that the image reminds him of a whale. Indeed, not a minnow, to be sure. Sometimes I think it is not just one fish but a school of fish swimming up stream, each brush stroke being a fish in itself. It is so vivid that Maki must have felt, 40 years ago when he did it, that it did not need a sun or moon. Between Work 73-60 and 73-100 we have no record of any print appearing. Since our records are good but unable to create prints, we suspect Maki did all these images but they are yet to appear. Where are they hiding? One friend suggests the brown stain on the print is not coffee; Minckler also feels it is not coffee, some dark liquid if not what is it? I will know in a few days. Where did this print spend its life? One friend has suggested that, since it surfaced in Tokyo framed, it spent lts life in Japan. If so, the story is curious and curious-er. I suspect it spent most of its life in the US and for some reason it returned to Japan where it was sold at an auction there for a song and some one made a mint selling it to this Olde Man in Beijing. Gomenasai my eye. I am grateful to Michael Minckler for the photos of the print he is restoring. Frame 1 image shows curling, which occurred in shipping and will disappear not paper separation dt the print back side up in Minckler’s studio It is clean – no more stain voila