Catalog (279)

This note discusses print 76-26, which Daniel Tretiak called "Maki’s little green Leisure Time."

This note concerns Poem 70-38, a rarely seen Big Red. NOTE: Daniel Tretiak created the term Big Reds for Haku Maki's large works centered on large kanji in red, usually on a black background and often done in broad strokes. Large ones in blue or yellow or green came to be termed Big Blues, Big Yellows, Big Greens, and so forth.

This short note looks at print 75-29, a beautifully painted kanji for wine.

Daniel Tretiak chose to number this note 32, with no explanation of why there were no other notes between 28 and this one. In this note he focused on Poem J, a 1966 print that had just emerged (in 2019).

Daniel Tretiak did this note on Emanation 73, one of Haku Maki's works in his large Emanation series. The note was done in April 2019. Eleven months later Dan Tretiak died. I write this with such great and lasting pain.

In late 2011, I received several Maki prints of 1981. These all have leather-like surfaces. I thought this was a phenomenon of that year. I was wrong. Maki actually used this surface in 1971 for a few Persimmon prints and then not again until 1981. I show here copies from my Maki archives. When we filed those images a long time ago, they were not clear enough, are still not. But I think they are with that leather-like finish. Any views most gratefully received. My images are from catalogues. I do not own the actual prints. poem 71 -32 catalogue; poem 71-33 eBay; 71-43; poem 71-66

This note shows two book plates depicting flowers. They were provided by Michael Minckler. The plates are signed Takako. Maejima Takako is the name of Maki's wife.

This research note was written by Bob Craft, who compiled the catalogue raisonné of Maki's works. See it at http://haku-maki.com/. This note discusses Maki's print-making technique.

This note about Maki's Work 626 was written by Michael Minckler.

This note was written by Robert Craft and discusses Maki's use of an archaic form of Chinese script called seal script.

This note discusses Haku Maki's Poem 70–14. Poem from the Manyoshu, and the sources of the kanji he used to create the print. The note was written in August 2019 by Robert Craft.

This Guest Note was written by Bob Craft in December 2018. It discusses Haku Maki's use of ancient calligraphy in Poem 69-47.

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.

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.

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