"Infinite Opportunities Offered in Color": Prints by Helen Hyde and Bertha Lum

By the turn of the twentieth century, Japanese art and aesthetics had greatly influenced the work of many American artists. After Japan ended its self-imposed isolation from the West in the 1860s, Americans and Europeans were introduced to Japan’s art and culture through exhibitions at museums and world’s fairs, and artists responded enthusiastically. Ukiyo-e color woodcuts particularly inspired American printmakers and stimulated a renaissance of woodcut printmaking.

Helen Hyde (1868–1919) and Bertha Lum (1879–1954) were two of the prominent artists demonstrating the medium’s creative potential between 1900 and 1930. Each artist encountered Japanese art at a pivotal moment in her artistic training, leading her to travel to Tokyo to learn traditional from master craftsmen. Their travels became the subject matter of their work, introducing the people, places, and legends of Japan, China, and India to American audiences. Both Lum and Hyde recognized the unique artistic possibilities for representing traditional aspects of life in an area of the world that was rapidly modernizing.

Both Helen Hyde and Bertha Lum started their formal artistic training with family encouragement. After enrolling at art schools in San Francisco and New York, Hyde traveled to Europe; in Paris, she became immersed in Japanese art. Lum studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she was introduced to Japanese color prints through Composition, the influential textbook that promoted Japanese printmaking techniques. Both Hyde and Lum eventually traveled to and lived in Japan, Hyde staying almost continuously for fourteen years, while Lum made several shorter trips. Lum also lived for long periods in Peking (now Beijing), making prints according to traditional Chinese techniques.

Though each artist portrayed famous sites in her prints, Hyde focused on women and children as subjects, while Lum often chose to illustrate stories from Japanese and Chinese folklore. Both artists were recognized as leaders in the burgeoning field of American color woodcut printmaking and were featured in an exhibition of contemporary color prints at San Francisco’s world’s fair, the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, in 1915.

Organized by Christine Giviskos, Curator of Prints, Drawings, and European Art