Episode Details

Ralph Kiggell (1960-2022) was an important part of the international mokuhanga community for many years. Ralph took the different elements of mokuhanga, the energy and exploration of an artist, to create some of the most dramatic and ambitious mokuhanga today. Ralph Kiggell passed away in 2022 a few months after this episode was published.

On this episode of The Unfinished Print I speak with mokuhanga printmaker Ralph Kiggell about his life in Thailand, using locally sourced materials for his mokuhanga from that country; we also speak on his artistic ambitions, his observations on the current state of the mokuhanga community, and what he would like to see as its future.

Please follow The Unfinished Print and my own print work on Instagram @andrezadoroznyprints Twitter @unfinishedprint, or email me at theunfinishedprint@gmail.com

Notes: may contain a hyperlink. Simply click on the highlighted word or phrase.

Ralph Kiggell - website, Instagram, interview with Evil. O

Japan and the West - Japan as a country has had an uneasy relationship with the "West." In many cases this relationship has focused solely with the United States. For a fine early description of this particular relationship please read The Making of Modern Japan, by Marius B. Jansen, and Empreror of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852-1912 by Donald Keene.

ukiyo-e - is a multi colour woodblock print generally associated with the Edo Period (1603-1867) of Japan. What began in the 17th Century as prints of only a few colours, evolved into an elaborate system of production and technique into the Meiji Period (1868-1912). With the advent of photography and other forms of printmaking, ukiyo-e as we know it today, ceased production by the late 19th Century.

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606-1669) - was a Dutch painter, considered to be a part of the Dutch Golden Age of painting. He was notable for his self-portraits, landscape painting, and empathic painting.

Serigraphy - is another word for the art of silk screen printing. Silk screen printing can be in on various materials, silk, canvas, paper, etc.

Western Engagement with Mokuhanga - the connection with woodblock prints and the West, predominantly with the United States and Britain, began when the elite of both countries started collecting ukiyo-e. Collecting ukiyo-e was the fashion for wealthier patrons of the arts who saw the beautiful images from Japan and their "Oriental" aesthetic as worth collecting. By the start of the twentieth century ukiyo-e production had began to wane. It wasn't until Watanabe Shōzaburō (1885-1962) who worked in the woodblock print business, and who exported prints to the West to a foreign market, saw the benefit of focusing his business for foreign buyers. He established his publishing house in Tōkyō for making woodblock prints with high end techniques (almost lost at that point) and used the traditional hanmoto system of print production to facilitate the demand. This began a fruitful business which created a new generation of woodblock production and Japanese aesthetic. The two important types of woodblock print styles from this period are shin-hanga (new prints), and sōsaku-hanga (creative prints).

shin-hanga - or, new prints, is a style of woodblock print production connected to the early twentieth century in Japan. Attributed to Watanabe Shōzaburō, and were created via the ukiyo-e, hanmoto system. Prints are produced through a hierarchy. This hierarchy is as follows: publisher commissions artist who designs the prints, p