Edutainment > Paul Binnie - Edo Sumi Hyaku Shoku

Kuniyoshi's Cats, 2004
by Paul Binnie
copyright Paul Binnie

When Paul Binnie announced to us his plans for a new series of tattoo prints as early as the beginning of 2004, we were really excited. Binnie mentioned a time frame for the launch of the first two designs of summer 2004. We had hoped for autumn at the best. "Paper is patient" as a German proverb goes. We were wrong.

Here they are - the first two designs of Edo Sumi Hyaku Shoku - 'A Hundred Shades of Ink of Edo'. On August 4, we had the number one (1/100) from each design in our hands - available for our clients in early September in one of our regular Japanese prints auctions.

"This August sees the release of the first two designs of the new tattoo series 'Edo Sumi Hyaku Shoku' - A Hundred Shades of Ink of Edo. These designs are based on prints by Kuniyoshi and Yoshitoshi, and are entitled 'Kuniyoshi's Cats' and 'Yoshitoshi's Ghosts'."
(Paul Binnie)

How it started - Tattoo Prints from Binnie's Tokyo Years

This new series of tattoo prints has a little background story. It had all started in the 1990s in Japan.

When Paul Binnie lived in Tokyo from 1993 until 1998, he had created prints with tattoo designs. Paul made them more for his personal fun, and these prints had never been shown in any public show or offered for sale until in 2003. It was then a bit of a coincidence and artelino was not quite "innocent" in persuading Paul to present his Tokyo tattoo prints to the public.

The tattoo prints from Binnie's Tokyo years became a great success. In summer of 2004 we had sold the last copies.

Edo Sumi Hyaku Shoku

Yoshitoshi's Ghost, 2004
by Paul Binnie
copyright Paul Binnie

Binnie is represented by many important, real world galleries for contemporary Japanese art. But he is also a pioneer in selling and promoting his own prints over the internet. He is therefore no "speechless" artist who needs other art professionals to speak for him. Binnie announces and explains his art works himself - in the best tradition of Hanga artists, who design, carve, print and publish themselves.

We'd better shut up at this point, and let the artist speak.

Kuniyoshi's Cats

"Kuniyoshi was well-known in the Edo period for his love of cats, and they appear in all sorts of prints by him, from bijin-ga to shunga, and in my print the tattoos as well as the title cartouche derive from his c. 1848 series 'Cats Representing the 53 Stations of the Tokaido'."

"The real cat in the print belonged to my fellow artist and printmaker Ralph Kiggell, and was a Thai-born Siamese, while the seal in this print is a cartoon cat design made up of the letters of my name, a conceit which I have decided to continue throughout the series, contorting the Roman letters of 'Paul Binnie' into images which refer to the subject."

"Throughout the series, the designs will break out of the frames into the margins, and will be placed against shaded sumi backgrounds printed in baren-sujizuri, or swirling texture printing, while the title and signature will be printed in bronze metallic pigment. In 'Kuniyoshi's Cats' the fur of the real cat is embossed or blind-printed, and other designs will have mica, gofun or 'lacquer' printing."

Yoshitoshi's Ghosts

Detail - Yoshitoshi's Ghost, 2004
by Paul Binnie
copyright Paul Binnie

"The Yoshitoshi print plays a sort of joke, as it shows the moment after a famous design by him, as it might be imagined. The large tattoo on the back is derived from 'Moonlight over Mount Yoshino' of 1886, one of the artist's 'One Hundred Aspects of the Moon' series, where a court lady, Iga no Tsubone, chastises the ghost of Kiyotaka for haunting the emperor."

"In this tattoo, we see what might have happened as a result, while the model's leg is tattooed with the demon Ibaraki, who moments before appeared in the 1889 print from the 'Thirty-Six Ghosts and Demons' series, gripping Sadanobu's sword-hilt, but who here has lost its arm. Both of these dramatic and bloody images connect with Yoshitoshi's own love of gory imagery in his work, but the rising smoke from the incense burner reminds us of 'Yugiri, Genji's Lover' in the 'Hundred Aspects' print of 1886, which shows a more poetic side to the Meiji artist, and here the smoke-spirit is rendered in white 'lacquer'."

"The cartouche illustration is drawn from a print of 1865 called the 'Greedy Hag', from the Tale of the Tongue-Cut Sparrow, and in this print the seal is based on the disfigured, skull-like head of Oiwa, one of the most chilling ghost stories in Kabuki."

Print Size and Further Plans

"Prints of the Edo Sumi Hyaku Shoku series are 43 x 29 cm (16.7 x 11.3 inches), my usual Dai-Oban size, and are produced in editions of 100. There will be at least two female nude designs later in the series, the tattoos of which will come from Harunobu and Utamaro. The total number of new designs has not been fixed, but will depend on demand, although I hope there will be at least six and perhaps more in the set."

"I might also carve and print a version of the female designs with no tattoo."

Private Editions

Moonlight over Mount Yoshino
by Yoshitoshi, 1886
copyright protected

"There will also be a very small, private edition of each design available to selected collectors which has a deep crimson baren-sujizuri background, different areas of gofun printing, extra hand shading and no tattoos on the male nudes, which are not part of this edition."

For further information please contact Paul Binnie via his web site - see below.

More Print Work to Come - Haru...

"As you may know, I have recently completed Aki, Autumn, my third Bijin-ga for Barry Stokes in Tennessee, and that means the Shiki, Four Seasons, series is three-quarters through. The new piece was editioned for me by Itakura Hidestugu in Tokyo, and I intend to have the fourth design, Haru, Spring, printed by him, too, as he has made such an excellent job of Aki. I will be carving the Haru print in the later part of 2004, and the design will be released in the Spring, 2005."

...and Famous Views of Japan

"My next landscape in the Nihon Meiosho Zu-e (Famous Views of Japan) series, of the Sankeien gardens in Yokohama in the snow, will be released in the winter, 2004, and will form a pendant with the Himeji Castle which I produced in the spring."

Good Luck!

Thanks Paul, good luck and continue your outstanding work!

Dieter Wanczura (August 2005, updated March 2009)
(Binnie's text slightly edited and links added by artelino)

Video Presentation of Paul Binnie

Click for Video
copyright protected

We produced a video with a short presentation of Paul Binnie. Please click on the image or on the link to go to the video page.

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