$1,000–$8,000. Common subjects: $1,000–$2,500. Key value factors: Bertha Lum's status as a pioneering Western woodblock printmaker gives her work historical value. Her Art Nouveau-influenced prints are particularly sought after.
Mount Fuji, the most iconic subject in Japanese printmaking history, receives Bertha Lum's interpretation in this 1907 color woodcut. The honorific "O Fuji San" reflects the mountain's revered status in Japanese culture — at once a sacred site, a national symbol, and an inexhaustible subject for artists from Hokusai and Hiroshige to the shin-hanga masters. Lum's version, made just four years after her first visit to Japan, inevitably engages with this massive artistic legacy. Her Western perspective brings a slightly different spatial sensibility to the composition — perhaps a greater emphasis on the mountain's physical mass rather than its symbolic resonance. The color woodcut technique, with its capacity for flat color planes and precise edge definition, suits Fuji's geometric profile particularly well.
Wakasa Kugushiko
1920
Color woodblock print; oban
Woodblock print
1934
Color woodblock print; oban
n.d.
Woodblock print; ishizuri-e, section of harimaze sheet
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
O Fuji San was created by Bertha Lum in 1907.
O Fuji San depicts landscapes and mount fuji, set at Mount Fuji.
O Fuji San measures 34 × 8.7 cm.
