The Female Image

Amy Reigle Newland has worked as a specialist editor and writer on Japanese woodblock prints for some fifteen years, with a particular interest in works of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In either and editorial and/or authorial role, her publications include Japanese Erotic Fantasies: Sexual Imagery of the Edo Period (2005), Printed to Perfection: Twentieth-century Japanese Prints from the Robert O. Muller Collection (2004), A Courtesan's Day: Hour by Hour (2004), The Commercial and Cultural Climate of Japanese Printmaking (2004), Kawase Hasui: The Complete Woodblock Prints (2003), Crows, Cranes & Camellias: The Natural World of Ohara Koson 1877-1945 (2001), Time Present and Time Past: Images of a Forgotten Master - Toyohara Kunichika 1835-1900 (1999), Heroes & Ghosts: Japanese Prints by Utagawa Kuniyoshi 1797-1861 (1998), and The New Wave: Twentieth-century Japanese Prints from the Robert O. Muller Collection (1993). The Hotei Encyclopedia of Japanese Woodblock Prints (2005) is her most ambitious project to date, one which was coordinated from her home in rural New Zealand where she lives with her husband, son and flock of sheep.
Shinji Hamanaka completed a postgraduate artcourse at the Tokyo University of Fine Art and Music. He is currently working for the Yamatane Museum of Fine Arts in Tokyo.He has written several articles on his major field of survey: Pre-modern and modern Japanese pictures.