by Bertha Lum
$1,000–$8,000. Snow and night scenes tend to command premium prices for this artist. 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.
Figures and landscape merge in darkness in this 1912 color woodcut, where the night becomes an active presence rather than mere absence of light. Lum tackles the technical problem of the nocturnal print — maintaining visual interest and legibility within a predominantly dark palette — by strategically placing light sources or light-toned elements against the enveloping blackness. The "through" of the title suggests passage and movement, a journey undertaken after sundown when familiar terrain becomes mysterious and distances feel amplified. Printing dark areas in water-based woodblock technique requires building up pigment through multiple impressions or using concentrated applications, and the paper must be carefully dampened to accept dense color without blotching. Lum's control of this process allows the night scene to read as velvety rather than muddy.
Woodblock print
Teradomari no yau
1921
Color woodblock print; oban
![Mount Fuji on a Moonlit Night, Kawai Bridge (Tsukiyo no Fuji [Kawaibashi]), from the series "Selection of Views of the Tokaido (Tokaido fukei senshu)" by Kawase Hasui](https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/d0960668-1e73-339a-b182-fb995a54bff0/full/843,/0/default.jpg)
1947
Color woodblock print; oban
March 1933
Color woodblock print; oban
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Through the Night was created by Bertha Lum in 1912.
Through the Night depicts night scenes.
Through the Night measures 14.3 × 36 cm.
