Charles W BARTLETT

This oban woodblock print, catalogued under the artist's full name, represents a work by one of the very few Western-born artists to achieve genuine fluency in Japanese woodblock technique. Charles William Bartlett was born in Bridport, Dorset, in 1860, trained at the Royal Academy in London, and spent years painting in watercolor across Europe before discovering Japan and its printmaking tradition.

After studying the woodblock process in Japan, Bartlett collaborated with Japanese printers and publishers to produce a remarkable body of color prints depicting scenes from his travels across Asia and the Pacific. He eventually settled in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he spent the last decades of his life. His hybrid position, British by birth, Japanese by technique, Hawaiian by residence, and Asian in subject matter, makes him one of the most geographically and culturally wide-ranging artists in the woodblock print tradition.