About Lost Ink
Lost Ink, a subsidiary of Between Heaven and Earth LLC, is an online gallery of 18th, 19th and 20th century Japanese woodblock prints. The Gallery was created out of a fascination for these remarkable works of art.
The traditional Japanese art of woodblock printing as practiced in the 18th and 19th century was a very complex, elaborate and collaborative project between artist, publisher, woodblock carver and printer… an art form that today is practiced by very few and none that in our opinion rival the detail and intricacies found in the prints from the 1800’s. Hence the name Lost Ink.
The Lost Ink gallery makes every effort to accurately describe the condition and quality of each print and as part of that process the web site provides high resolution scans of the front and reverse of each print. The site allows you to view enlarged images of each print as well. A 21 inch monitor or larger is recommended for optimum web site viewing. In addition the Lost Ink Gallery always provides as much information about the subject matter of the print as possible.
This web gallery opened online in December 2009 and currently offers a very small selection of the prints we have in inventory. We intend to add a significant number of prints over the next several months. When new prints are added they will be listed on the “New Acquisitions” page as well as the category page to which they belong. New prints will remain in the New Acquisitions category for approximately one month. Through out the first quarter of 2010 this web site will very much be a work in progress with many things being added over the course of that time. Besides adding new prints we will be adding more detail about the prints that are already on the site, biographical sketches about the artist, the history and process of woodblock printing and information about the care and preservation of woodblock prints. Some of this will be presented within this gallery and some will be presented in the form of links to other web sites. It is our belief that the more one knows about a particular print, the artist and the process behind its creation the more one can appreciate the work of art.
We hope you enjoy visiting the gallery.
How To Navigate the Web Gallery
Prints can be found in two ways, by category and by artist. On the left side of each page you will find a list of categories. When you click on a category it will bring you to the home page of that category. Each home page has a moving graphic design (flash image) that last between 9 and 20 seconds. As the image changes it leaves thumbnails images of prints from that category on the page. If you click on one of these thumbnails it will bring you to the product page for that category. You can also get to the product page by clicking on the yellow “view all images” that pops up under the category name in the left margin. If you do nothing you will automatically be brought to the product page for that category a few seconds after the flash animation ends. Once on the product page you can scroll up and down to view all images. When you click on an image it will bring you to a detailed description page for that print.
The second way to find prints is to view the prints by Artist. If you click on the “Search By Artist” button in the left margin a drop down window will appear with the names of all the artist who’s works are currently represented in the gallery. If you click on one of the artist name it will bring you to a product page that contains all of the prints for that artist that are currently in the gallery.
