The shin hanga woodcuts of Cyrus Leroy Baldridge

During the twenties, the American illustrator, Cyrus Leroy Baldridge and his wife, Caroline Singer, travelled extensively in the east, arriving in Pekin some time in 1924 or 1925. While there he made various watercolours and drawings of the walls and precincts of the old city. When the couple moved on to Tokyo, they met the print publisher Shozaburo Wantanabe who had already worked with a small number of Western artists as well as artists from Japan. As some of you will already know, I am not a great fan of any of the work Wantanabe did with his Western artists but what they were doing was always interesting and Baldridge in particular is nowhere near as expensive as Elizabeth Keith or Charles Bartlett.

In 1915 Wantanabe had had his first great success with Goyo Hashiguchi's Woman in a bathroom and came up with the term shin hanga, or new print, as a way of marketing his artists. Sadly artists like Hashiguchi were not only talented, they were also disloyal and soon went off, found craftsmen to make their prints and published them themselves. This was not an option for Western artists like Bartlett and Keith and as they arrived in Tokyo, Wantanabe nobbled them and set them to work making prints for him. Keith didn't even like being in Japan and always preferred Korea, China and Moro Island, but Tokyo was where the work was.

Not all that long before Baldridge and Singer arrived Wantanabe's publishing business had been struck by disaster. On 1st September, 1923, Honshu Island was subjected to a devastating earthquake and many of the blocks that Wantanabe's craftsmen had made, including all of Keith's, had been destroyed.  Keith was still working with him when Baldridge arrived and so far as I can see, he was the last of the Westerners to be taken up by Wantanabe. By my reckoning there was a portfolio of six prints only published in 1925. As you can see from Peking Market (above) there were all on japan and I believe came in editions of 200. All were inscribed by Baldridge but not always with the full title. You might just get 'Peking 25' and at least one of them is inscribed no. 204. Many people also credit Singer but I have no idea what she actually did.

Going by the watercolour of Peking South Gate, the studio didn't always do Baldridge's work justice. I assume Wantanabe chose the subjects and Baldridge worked on the designs for the block-cutter. Six was the number of prints he had used when Bartlett worked in Tokyo and all the prints Baldridge made are here, including Evening Peking (top) and Peking - Pailou (second down). As late as autumn 1954, Baldridge had a show of prints at the California State Library at Sacramento when he still had prints for sale. This barely seems credible today but the majority were drypoints and going by the list (above) the six colour woodcuts of Peking were all he ever made. So far as I am aware no one has put this definitive Sacramento catalogue and all the images together in one place before.

But where did the idea come from? The subjects are similar to the ones chosen by the British artist, Katharine Jowett, who began  making colour linocuts of the old city some time during the twenties. Coal Hill (second and third above) was not only common to both artists, the view is identical, with Baldridge's print only deeper in order to conform with the oban sheet. This is very curious and suggests one print was copied from the other. But there is more. Some of my readers are fortunate enough to own a proof of Isabel de B. Lockyer's superior linocut Chateau de Blonay from 1924 (first above) and will note the similarity between Baldridge's Coal Hill and de B. Lockyer's image. Whether Jowett was making linocuts by 1925 no one knows. The choice of the ancient city as a subject may seem an obvious one, but Keith never bothered with this topographical approach. Nor did anyone else, including Bertha Lum, who spent long periods working in the city.  The Hanga Gallery (where a lot of these images come from) in Durham, North Carolina (and, no, they don't have any for sale) give only five titles, but this must be wrong. The other two are Peking Winter (below) and Peking South Gate (bottom).

All were produced in the old oban size and vary in their effectiveness. Peking Winter is the best of the lot for my money, but as I have never seem any of them in front of me, it is wise not to be too judgemental. I am sure all were made to the highest standards but Wantanabe's craftsmen varied their approach between intensive use of keyblock and hardly any. A number I think are flat but will certainly look better once you see them. But that is Baldridge anyway, an illustrator making use of the loquacious, muscular style popular in the U.S. between the wars and it tends to jar. They certainly capture the atmosphere of an oriental city despite that. Take away the style of the architecture and the scenes he depicts could be anywhere in the great cities of northern Morocco and the choice of twilight and different times of year is astute, subtle and telling. You just have to decide whether or not you like them. One thing I will say is, though, you wont be finding any of them at Camden Market or on the Portobello Road.

In a day or two I will be adding a second post about the watercolours and drawings following the comment made below by Scott Williams.