Bertha Lum studied at the Art Institute of Chicago with Frank Holme who experimented with color woodblock techniques. She was exposed to the great collections of Morse, Buckingham and the Japanese influences of Frank Lloyd Wright. She married attorney, Burt F. Lum in Minneapolis in 1903, and they honeymooned in Japan. In 1907 she again traveled to Japan where she studied with master carver Iagmi Bonkotsu and printer Nishimura Kamakichi. She settled in Tokyo in 1911.

Lum preferred Japanese subjects, influenced by the prints of Hiroshige and the nostalgic and lyrical themes of Lafcadio Hearn. She remained in Japan until 1912, studying all aspects of woodblock printmaking. She returned to Minneapolis in 1912, where she continued to produce prints. In 1915 and 1919 she made extended trips to Japan, and in 1922 she made her first trip to Peking and, with the exception of the war years, spent most of her remaining years there.

LEFT: Tanabata (c. 1913)

Bertha Lum retells another Oriental legend in this print from a woodcut.

The woman is the daughter of the sky god who weaves cloth for her father and all his colleagues. Some say "tanabata" is the term for her loom.

Because his daughter works ceaselessly every day of the year, the sky god introduces her to a herdsman who lives on the other side of the Milky Way. The two hard-working young people fall in love, spend all their time together and ignore their duties. The exasperated father separates the lovers but allows them to meet once a yearCif they produce enough cloth and take care of the cows.

July 7th, the date of their annual rendezvous, commemorates two stars, Altair and Vega, coming close together in the sky. They are usually separated by the Milky Way. Participants in the festival write their wishes on small pieces of paper and hang them on a special bamboo tree.

CENTER: Aoyagi (Yellow Willow)

The story of Aoyagi concerns a young samurai, Tomotada, caught in a snowstorm and given shelter by an old couple. He is smitten by the grace and beauty of their daughter when she responds to his poem with a spontaneous one of her own.

After the storm, they leave together, but cannot marry because of the difference in caste. When Aoyagi is commanded to appear before the warlord, Tomotada writes her a poem, using only 28 characters. Then, he is summoned. Fearing the worst, he appears, but instead of punishment, the warlord, moved by the poem, marries them.

For five years, they live happily, but one day she is taken ill, admits she is not a human being but the soul of the willow tree. After she dies, Tomotada becomes an itinerant Buddhist monk, performing good works in memory of Aoyagi.

RIGHT: Asia (c. 1920)

The name of the globe's largest continent is rooted in a word for "light," and by extension, the morning light that comes from the east. Bertha Lum turned her attention to Asia and the east by spending her honeymoon in Japan and by later studying with master woodcarvers and printmakers there. In Japan, a major earthquake destroyed most of her blocks and woodcuts in 1923.

About one or two years after producing this woodcut, Lum traveled to Peking for the first time. She was a permanent resident of China during the 1930s and from 1948-53. In 1936, she published Gangplank to the East.

All originals were: 1 print: woodcut; color. The images are housed in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress.

Frame : Antique Gold w/ Spidering, double matted : size is 13 3/4 x 20 3/4.

Price: $120.00

Availability: Usually ships in one to two weeks

Product #: FR0008