Bookstore, Seine, Paris, Shôwa period, dated 1960
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Edition:
- Self-printed
- Source:
- Harvard Art Museums
Typical Price
- Exceptional or early edition Saito print in fine condition: $3,000–$15,000
- Good condition mid-career print: $500–$2,000
- Standard edition: $200–$600
Description
The bouquinistes—the green-painted wooden boxes of the Seine riverbank booksellers—were for Saito one of Paris's most legible metaphors: a city that had made the outdoor display of printed matter into an architectural tradition. His 1960 Bookstore Seine print likely presents these stalls as flat geometric forms reflected in rain-slicked pavement, the books themselves reduced to colored rectangles. The same eye that transformed Kyoto temple roofs into abstract planes found in Paris a different but equally compelling geometry.
More Prints by Saito Kiyoshi
More Urban Scenes Prints
A Hundred Shades of Ink of Edo: Kiyonaga's Pipe (Edo zumi hyaku shoku: Kiyonaga no kiseru)
Woodblock print
View of Kabuki Theater from Matsuya (Ginza Matsuya yori Kabukiza), no. 3 from the series "Pictures of Ginza, First Series (Gashu Ginza dai isshu)"
1928
Color lithograph
Distant View of Mitsukoshi Movie Theater in Shinjuku from the Sixth Floor of Hoteiya (Hoteiya rokkai kara Shinjuku Mitsukoshi Musashi no kan enbo zu), no. 1 from the series "Scenery of Shinjuku (Gashu Shinjuku fukei)"
1930
Color lithograph
Spring Dusk at the Tōshō Shrine in Ueno
1948
Woodblock print, ink and color on paper
Featured in Collections
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Frequently Asked Questions
Bookstore, Seine, Paris, Shôwa period, dated 1960 was created by Saito Kiyoshi (斎藤清).
Bookstore, Seine, Paris, Shôwa period, dated 1960 depicts urban scenes, rivers & lakes, and travel scenes.