Anne H Oman
Reporter-at-Large
November 3, 2016 1″00 a.m.
“When I first met my husband, he came with two Japanese prints,” said Christine Meehan.
Now the Meehan’s – Paul and Christine – own some three hundred of these artworks, 36 of which are on view at the Fernandina Beach Library through the end of the year. The exhibit, “The Art of the Japanese Print,” is sponsored by the Friends of the Library.
Sitting on a desk in the Community Room Gallery, where the Meehan’s greet visitors and answer questions about the artworks (schedule below), is the first print Paul bought, in the 1970s, at a gallery on W. 8th Street in New York’s Greenwich Village. It’s an abstract work on a rich red field by Hiroyaki Tajima, entitled “Scarleting B.”
“I loved it for the form and color,” Paul explained.
Both natives of Brooklyn, the Meehan’s met while Christine attended graduate school in nursing at NYU, married, and began collecting together. Paul started working on tugboats, then became a merchant seaman. In the 1980s, he sailed on a tanker that was chartered to the Navy, refueling ships from the Persian Gulf to the Far East.
“It’s a great way to travel,” he said. “I could get off and stay in a place for a week or so.”
One of the places was Japan, where he visited printmakers and galleries and bought prints.
“Most people start with the Ukiyo-e, or “Floating World” prints and work their way up to contemporary,” he said. “We liked the abstract.”
“Ukiyo-e prints are early, before Japan opened up to the West,” explained Christine. “The Japanese didn’t know the printing press had been invented. Woodblock prints were like newspapers.”
“They were scandal sheets, throwaways, like the National Enquirer,” broke in Paul. “’This kabuki player is going with so-and-so.’”
“The foreigner traders who came to Japan started buying these prints to take home,” said Christine. “The Japanese didn’t understand why foreigners wanted them, but, being the good businessmen that they are, they started making more of them and selling them.”
In addition to kabuki stars and sumo wrestlers, Ukiyo-e artists also painted travel scenes and landscapes. And, although the Meehan’s prefer later, abstract works, their collection includes several Ukiyo-e prints, including one by Ando Hiroshige of Mount Fuji viewed from the Tokaido Road, This was the route heavily traveled by Japanese officialdom from the 17th to the 19th century, when the Emperor reigned in Kyoto and the Shogun exercised the real power in Edo, the old name for Tokyo.
The prints brought to Europe by the traders had a strong influence on western art.
“Monet plastered his walls with Ukiyo-e prints,” said Paul.
Degas, Manet, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec and others also found inspiration in Japanese art. And the influence went both ways.
“Japanese artists saw the Impressionists and other modern Western artists and wanted to do their own thing.”Thus was born sosaku (for “creative”) and hanga for prints. Sosaku hanga is the focus of the Meehan’s collection.
“The contemporary artists are very exciting.” Said Christine.
Ukiyo-e prints were produced through a division of labor. The artist painted a picture and gave it to the publisher. The publisher hired a carver, who created the woodblock, and a printer, who printed it. But sosaku hanga artists wanted to do it all: paint the picture, make the block, and print it. And some contemporary artists use printing techniques other than woodblock.
For example, the signature work of the collection, “Hymn,” by Toko Shinoda, is a lithograph, made by a photographic process. The artist is a 103-year-old woman who is a skilled calligrapher, painter and muralist.
Some contemporary artists mix woodblock with other techniques. “A Song of Stars” by Yoshikatsu Tamekane, for example, achieves its texture by collography, a process that places materials such as grass on top of the woodblock.
And Kan Kawada’s “Fireworks at Miyuki Street,” showing a Tokyo neighborhood with the dome of an old Russian church amidst a shower of fireworks, was made with a technique called kappazuri, which uses numerous stencils to create an image.
“My wife likes fireworks. I like snow. We both like rock gardens,” said Paul.
All are well represented in the exhibit. In fact, pressed to name a personal favorite, Paul pointed to a piece by Kawase Hasui of a cinnabar-red temple in the snow. (The prints of Hasui are classified as shin hnga, or “new prints”, created in the early twentieth century before the sosaku hanga movement began in the 1960s.)
“Maybe I like it because I’ve been to the temple, though it wasn’t snowing when I got there,” said Paul.
Christine confesses to no favorites.
“I love them all,” she said. “We only bought what we loved. We’ve had fun collecting –it’s been a journey for 41 years. We bought what we could afford,”
“Even if we couldn’t afford it – we bought it anyway,” said Paul, explaining that gallery owners were often amenable to installment-plan buying.
The Meehan’s moved to Amelia Island eleven years ago, when Paul retired. Christine still works, as an adjunct professor at the University of Connecticut and for a biotech start-up in Sarasota. Paul volunteers for Barnabas and Cat Angels (“I scoop poop on Tuesdays”), and reads to Head Start children at the Peck Center.
The couple exhibited their collection at the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens in Delray Beach in 2012, and are grateful for the library space.
“We’re happy for the opportunity to share our collection with the community,” said Christine. “We’re hoping it will encourage others on the island—there are people here who have museum-quality collections –to share them as well.”
The Art of the Japanese Print will be on view in the Community Gallery of the Fernandina Beach Library until the end of the year. Viewing times are as follows:
Tuesday, November 1 from 10 to Noon; Saturday, November 5 from 11 to 1; Monday, November 7 from 5:30 to 8; Thursday, November 10 from 1 to 3; Saturday, November 12 from 1 to 3; Tuesday, November 15 from 10 to Noon; Thursday, November 17 from 1 to 3; Saturday, November 19, from 11 to 1; Monday, November 21 from 5:30 to 8; Monday, November 28 from 5:30 to 8; Tuesday, November 29 from 10 to Noon; Thursday, December 1 from 1 to 3; Tuesday, December 6 from 10 to Noon; Thursday, December 8 from 1 to 3; Saturday, December 10 from 10 to Noon; Tuesday, December 13 from 1 to 3; Thursday, December 15 from 10 to Noon; Saturday, December 17 from 11 to 1; Tuesday, December 20 from 10 to Noon; Thursday, December 22 from 10 to Noon; Tuesday, December 27 from 10 to Noon; Thursday, December 29 from 10 to Noon, and Friday, December 30 from 10 to Noon.
In addition, the Meehan’s will be featured speakers at the Island Art Association’s Art Chat on Tuesday, November 15, at the Island Art Association on N. 2nd Street. Social hour with refreshments starts at 6:30, and the program begins at 7. The Meehan’s will show images of the collection as well as some actual prints. The event is free, and the public is invited.
Editor’s Note: Anne H. Oman relocated to Fernandina Beach from Washington, D.C. Her articles have appeared in The Washington Post, The Washington Star, The Washington Times, Family Circle and other publications.
We thank Anne for her contributions to the Fernandina Observer.