Gina Collia-Suzuki, an artist and writer who lives on the southwest coast of England with her husband and eight female rats, is the author of Utamaro Revealed. In the following interview, we discuss her collection of Japanese prints.
ephemera: When were you first introduced to Japanese prints, specifically Utamaro? How did you being your collection?
GCS: I was first introduced to Japanese prints when I fifteen years old, during a field trip to Birmingham Museum in the UK. It wasn't an actual print that I saw, it was a reproduction on the cover of Jack Hillier's Utamaro Colour Prints and Paintings that was on display in the bookshop. It was an 'our eyes met across a crowded room' moment...love at first sight. I read that book from cover to cover, over and over, and went in search of actual Japanese woodblock prints not long after that.
Being an artist, I was astounded at the skill of the craftsmen responsible for carving the woodblocks...humbled by the skills of the designers. When I went on to art college, my art history lecturer suggested that I get in touch with Jack Hillier, as I carried his book everywhere. I met Jack Hillier for the first time in 1986 (I was seventeen at the time), and with his guidance I started to seriously study the prints. I don't think I was ever simply interested in the prints; I think I went from not knowing of their existence to being utterly obsessed with them. I still feel the same way--obsessed. They are thoroughly captivating.
ephemera: That's a great story about meeting your idol. Talk more about the process of building your collection...did you begin consciously, knowing what you would collect, or did you just one day discover what you were doing?
GCS: I didn't intend to form a specific type of collection at all. I went to an antiques fair in the late 1980's and came across a Hokusai book illustration that was for sale. I bought it and told Jack Hillier about my first print purchase. He congratulated me on my find, and sent a couple of books by Utamaro to me. That was the start of it all. I added a print here and there over the next couple of years. I bought what I liked, and didn't give any thought to the type of prints I was collecting. Then one day I looked at my collection and realized that I'd been collecting specific groups of prints for quite a while. My rat print collection was started consciously a few years back, when I adopted my first rats. Other than those prints, which I go out of my way to search out as they're so difficult to find, I've continued to buy whatever takes my fancy, and the fact that the collection appears to be quite organized is purely accidental.
Ephemera: What challenges or obstacles do you encounter as a collector? How do you overcome these challenges?
GCS: One of the biggest challenges is the small quantity of really good prints being offered for sale these days. There were already relatively few exceptional prints on offer when I began collecting, more than twenty years ago, but now there are even less. Having said that, the hunt is part of the fun. Some of my most prized prints were discovered in the most unlikely of places, and that does add to the excitement of buying them. Unfortunately, the shortage of prints isn't an obstacle you can overcome...you just have to work with it, and search high and low, day and night, until you find another gem.
Ephemera: What are your favorite items in the collection?
GCS: My favorites change constantly, but at the moment one of my favorites is an image of three female geisha that my husband bought as a gift for me. I have a soft spot for Utamaro's depictions of female geisha performing in the Japanese Niwaka Festival, a festival which took place in the Yoshiwara pleasure quarters and involved a lot of dancing and music, and sumptuous, brightly-colored costumes. My rat prints are very special to me, due to my love of rats. No nation's artists have managed to capture the character and charm of the rat as well as the Japanese.
Ephemera: Female rats and Utamaro prints, now that's eclectic taste. What resources do you recommend to anyone interested in developing a similar collection?
GCS: The most important thing anyone interested in Japanese prints can do is to make the effort to go to museums and see the prints. Apply to view the prints that aren't on display in whatever student facilities they have available. Go to viewings at auction houses that have Japanese prints for sale. The only way to get a feel for Japanese prints is to see them in the flesh.
Unfortunately, there are no magazines devoted to Japanese prints. There are a number of very good books out there, although some are somewhat difficult to find these days. There's currently a huge book that's readily available called Ukiyo-E by Gian Carlo Calza which has numerous illustrations, so if you like Japanese prints but aren't certain which artist is really your cup of tea that would be a good place to start. There's a bibliography that lists many good titles too, so you can start with that book and work your way onto others. Personally, despite the fact that it was published in 1923, I would recommend Binyon & Sexton's Japanese Colour Prints, which might contain errors, due to its age, but really does give the reader a good grounding in the subject. From there you can move onto artist-specific books. Absolutely any book written by Jack Hillier is a gem--he didn't know how to write a bad book.
There are archival boxes available for storing antique prints, and they'll be safe and sound in one of those, making sure, of course, that if you do choose to place them inside card mounts, which makes handling so much easier, that you use acid-free stock. Japanese prints will fade if left out in sunlight, so if they're going to be on display they shouldn't remain out for extended periods of time.
ephemera: Thank you, Gina.
Search Abebooks for the books listed in this interview.
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