(Above: One of Hamanishi Katsunori’s bookplate-size prints on display at the White Lotus Gallery)
Edited by Randi Bjornstad
The exhibit that opened recently at The White Lotus Gallery and runs through Jan. 18, titled Bookish Delight: Ex-libris Mezzotints by Hamanishi Katsunori, is a perfect example of the well-known saying, “Good things come in small packages.”
It’s a collection of bookplate-sized prints — ex libris, of course, means “from the library of” and refers to a personalized ownership label affixed to the inside cover of a book — created by the Japanese master printmaker, using the mezzotint technique that many in the art world consider the most difficult of all.
Mezzotint dates back to 17th-century Amsterdam and became vastly popular in 18th-century England, often used as a way to create reproductions of paintings.
Another of Hamanishi’s brightly colored and detailed mezzotint prints
As a modern artist, Hamanishi (In Japan the last name is written first) has become world-renowned in his skill as a mezzotint printmaker, which he has expanded to incorporate another Japanese tradition, using gold leaf as part of his art form.
He also has become well-known for creating his bookplate-size prints, often commissioned by clients for their own use but also as standalone miniature art pieces.
He grew up in Hokkaido, Japan, and graduated with an art degree from Tokai University in Tokyo in 1973. He also has spent time in the United States, as a visiting artist at the Cleveland (Ohio) Art Institute in 1987-88. He was one of two artists, along with Yozo Hamaguchi, of a show in 2012 called The Art of Darkness in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery at The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., followed the next year by a solo show at the Art Institute of Chicago, and two years after that his work was included in Kimono: A Modern History, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
Also in 2015, Hamanishi sp0ke and gave a demonstration of his work at the University of Oregon’s Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon during an exhibit titled Expanding Frontiers: The Jack and Susy Wadsworth Collection of Postwar Japanese Prints.
His work is part of the permanent collections of museums around the globe, including not only the United States but Great Britain, Japan, and Australia.
Bookish Delight: Ex-libris Mezzotints by Hamanishi Katsunori
When: Through Jan. 18, 2025
Where: White Lotus Gallery, 767 Willamette St., Eugene
Gallery hours: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday
Information: 541-345-3276 or online at wlotus.com
