Flex Mentallo

My heart lifted when I first learned that Folio were to publish an Utamaro facsimile, then sank when I realised it would not feature his Ukiyo-e work - and in particular, his wonderful sequence of triptyches depicting ama divers—women whose work is to dive for shellfish or pearls. I'm hoping Prestel will eventually publish these in series with the Hiroshige volume above.

A view of all the volumes from above.

I thought this Folio Society limited edition worth highlighting, even though I dont own a copy! It's not the Utamaro I could have wished for, but extraordinary none the less. From the listing on their site: During Japan’s Edo period art and literature flourished and Kitagawa Utamaro (c.1754–1806) rose to fame as one of Japan’s most highly regarded artists and printmakers. Alongside his contemporaries Hiroshige and Hokusai, Utamaro was an acknowledged master of ukiyo-e, pictures of the Floating World. Designed between 1788 and 1790 the Studies from Nature are amongst Utamaro’s earliest known works and brought together the artist and the era’s best writers, printers and bookbinders. The two-volume The Book of Crawling Creatures, the single-volume Gifts of the Ebb Tide and the two-volume The Book of Myriad Birds are considered the ne plus ultra of the colour woodblock printer’s art and the art of bookmaking of the period. The Folio Society has printed from amongst the finest surviving first editions – luxury items in their own time and now treasures of the British Museum and the Fitzwilliam Museum – reproducing each element with absolute fidelity. These beautiful books are designed to be read in the traditional Japanese style from back cover to front, and from right to left across the page. In each, Utamaro’s elegant illustrations, as interesting to the naturalist as they are to lovers of art and poetry, are paired with kyōka: playful, erudite and often erotic poems on the sentiments of love, composed by some of the form’s most prominent poets.

Studies from Nature Kitagawa Utamaro (Illustrator) Translated by John T. Carpenter Limited to 500 numbered sets Essays by John T. Carpenter, Alfred Haft and Alex Kerr Five hand-crafted books of exquisite Japanese art and poetry in facsimile for the first time

Another great product here. The book measures 32.4 x 4.3 x 43.8 cm and is printed in the Japanese way with pages concertina-ed and then edge sewn on one side.

Hiroshige Matthi Forrer

I had that feeling!