Japanese Woodblock Print, 1961, 1st edition, pencil titled (in Japanese), dated and signed in the bottom margin

SIZE IN INCHES: oban, 11 x 15.5 inches

SHIMA TAMAMI (1937-1999) There is surprisingly little information on this well-regarded woman sosaku hanga artist who passed away in 1999. Born in Hirosaki, Amori Prefecture on August 11, 1937 she graduated from Tokyo Women's University of Arts (Women's College of Fine Arts) in 1958. There is no information about who she studied with and what led her to the create woodblock prints, but she was sufficiently talented to have received a travel grant in 1962 from the College Women's Association of Japan and to have her print Tori B (Bird B) included in James Michener's 1962 seminal book and print portfolio The Modern Japanese Print, An Appreciation. In commenting in his book on the two women artists included in the portfolio, Iwami Reika (b. 1927) and Shima, Michener notes, "...for two women to win prizes in a competition such as the present one signalizes a triumph of no small proportion. It has never been easy for women to attain prominence in Japanese art, and for two such young ones to have done so is indeed an accomplishment."

Shima's prints are in many public collections, including the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria; Art Gallery of New South Wales; British Museum; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA; Clark Art Institute, MA; Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin; Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Minneapolis Museum of Art; National Gallery of Australia; National Gallery of Victoria, Australia; Portland Art Museum; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Smithsonian Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery; Weatherspoon Art Museum.

VG, minor flaws as shown