The Woodblock Prints

This is in chronological order the prints of Bertha Lum.

I have renumbered / referenced the prints originally cataloged by M.E Gravalos & C. Pulin to take into account the discoveries since the publication of the catalog raisonné in 1990.

Bertha Lum first printed a series of prints (I could not figure out how many prints they were). In a second time she took the blocks to print a second and sometimes a third serie. With each new series she indicated in the “Copyright” the year of printing and not the year of creation of the work (of the design). It is not uncommon to have for the same image several dates.
For example one have here three copies of O Fuji San, a print is dated 1909, the other is from 1914 (the third is undated).
In the catalog of Gravalos & Pulin, the print dates from 1907.

A print is printed from woodblocks (see the technical page). One for the lines and several others for the colors.
On the same series of impressions, the colors change little, on the other hand, from one serie to another (thus printed one or more years later) these colors can vary: it all depends on the quantity of pigment or water for the mixing of colors.

In this catalog, I show the prints by taking the oldest date as reference. The numbering of the catalog takes into account this chronology.

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