Interesting Websites

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Informative websites on Japanese woodblock prints

Websites of dealers offering Japanese prints for sale

Basic information about Japanese woodblock prints
The website ‘Viewing Japanese Prints’ written and designed by our member John Fiorillo contains illustrated essays on the artists, designs, and techniques of traditional and modern Japanese prints. Highly recommanded.
https://www.viewingjapaneseprints.net

How Japanese woodblock prints are made?
The website of David Bull, a present-day printmaker, contains an informative section on the technical aspects of printmaking. He has a studio in Asakusa, Tokyo, that welcomes visitors.
http://woodblock.com/encyclopedia

In November, 2013, the contemporary woodblock print artist Paul Binnie presented at the Toledo Museum of Art an illustrated talk (1h 15 min) about the historical and technical aspects of woodblock printmaking in Japan. He also gave a live demonstration how a print is made. Highly recommanded.
https://youtu.be

Conservation and care of Japanese prints
The American Institute for Conservation and the Foundation for Advancement in Conservation offers a chapter on the the code of ethics and guidelines for practice setting forth the principles that guide conservation professionals and others who are involved in the care of cultural property.https://www.culturalheritage.org
There are also scholarly articles (pdfs) about proper care and handling of paper objects and about the matting and framing artifacts on paper.

On website ‘Viewing Japanese Prints’ there is a good section on ‘Care, repair and matting of Japanese Prints’.
https://www.viewingjapaneseprints.net

The Chester Beatty library site contains some interesting chapters on the conservation and care of Japanese prints, focusing on surimono.
https://chesterbeattyconservation

This site made by Thomas Crossland and Andreas Grund of Ukiyoe Gallery has an extensive page on the basics of matting and framing of Japanese prints.
http://www.ukiyoe-gallery.com

Who is the artist that designed your print?
A database initiated by Alec Wood in 2019 containing a great number of signatures and seals of ukiyo-e artists.
https://www.ukiyoesig.net/

The ‘Signatures of Ukiyo-e Artists’ page maintained by Hans Olof Johansson lists the most common kanji characters in ukiyo-e signatures, arranged alphabetically, according to their pronunciation.
http://www.ukiyo-e.se/signatur.htm

The ‘Ukiyo-e Signatures’ page of Dieter Wanczura lists over 600 fascimile of Japanese woodblocks artist and their seals.
https://www.artelino.com

Biographies of Japanese print artists
John Fiorillo has on his website 'Viewing Japanese prints' informative biographies of 35 popular designers of woodblock prints.
https://www.viewingjapaneseprints.net

How to find another copy of your Japanese print?
Ukiyo-e Search, maintained by John Resig, is a website that can find similar copies of your print among multiple collections of prints (over 220.000) published on the internet, by simply uploading a digital picture of your print. You can also search for prints related to a specific subjects such as Yoshitoshi, 1814, actor prints, etc.
https://ukiyo-e.org/

Websites that have large searchable databases showing Japanese woodblock prints
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston maintains a huge searchable database with excellent illustrations and scholarly descriptions (in English and Japanese) of over 14,000 Japanese prints.
https://collections.mfa.org

The British Museum in London has a large searchable database with excellent illustrations and basic information (in English and Japanese) of over 5000 Japanese prints.
https://www.britishmuseum.org

The Metropoliltan Museum in New York has a database with over 4300 Japanese prints provided with basic information. Many are in the public domain, so you can download and use the prints without asking permission.
https://www.metmuseum.org