BC. Laurence Binyon

17. With J. J. O’Brien Sexton. Japanese Colour Prints. London: Benn, 1923. 2nd ed. rev., edited by Basil Gray, London: Faber, 1960. Reprint, London: Sawers, 1978.

A period-by-period study of ukiyoe from 1658 to 1881 that remains useful and in print. All major artists are discussed. The bibliography of the 1923 edition lists twenty-five works in Japanese, including several on the theatre, one specifically about kabuki, along with Fenollosa’s Masters of Ukiyoe (D10a) and Noguchi’s Hiroshige and Harunobu (see D15e). The Faber and the Sawers editions have identical text, but the latter reproduces only sixteen of the original forty-eight plates. Gray, Binyon’s son-in-law, had succeeded Arthur Waley (D26) as Binyon’s assistant in the Department of Prints and Drawings.