Walter Joseph Phillips
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Format:
- Oban
- Source:
- Scholten Japanese Art
$1,000–$8,000. Common subjects: $1,000–$2,500. Key value factors: Phillips is highly collected in Canada. Mountain and lake scenes are most popular. Japanese-technique prints are more valued than his etchings.
Cataloged under the artist's full name rather than a descriptive title, this woodblock print belongs to Walter Joseph Phillips's body of Canadian landscape work. Phillips (1884-1963) was born in Barton-on-Humber, England, and emigrated to Canada in 1913, eventually settling in Winnipeg and later Banff, Alberta. His adoption of the Japanese woodcut technique made him a pioneering figure in Canadian printmaking, demonstrating that a medium developed for depicting Japanese subjects could render the Canadian landscape with equal conviction. This uncataloged print would depict one of Phillips's characteristic subjects: a lake, a mountain vista, a winter scene, or a forest interior, carved and printed with the precision and sensitivity to color that earned him recognition as one of the finest color woodcut artists in North America. The [oban](/glossary/oban) format suggests a print of substantial size suited to landscape composition.
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.
Walter Joseph Phillips was created by Walter J. Phillips.
Walter Joseph Phillips depicts landscapes and rivers & lakes.
