Today I helped launch Japanese Outsider Woodcuts (JOW), a new gallery created by Mark Boelhouwer, a longtime collector of woodblock prints created by untrained western artists mimicking and building upon the traditional Ukiyo-e style of Japanese woodcut artists. Here’s more:
The gallery focuses on the work of Paul Jacoulet, a French national who lived in Japan most of his life and who is one of the few western artists to have mastered the art of woodblock printing well enough to be recognized in Japan with exhibitions.
JOW has assembled a large collection of Jacoulet prints that we want to show, for the first time ever, at The Outsider Art Fair 2022 in New York City. There are 166 known Jacoulet woodblock prints and we would display [ ] of them. This would likely constitute the largest single sale of Jacoulet prints in one place at one time.
The collection has been developed over decades, based on a deep appreciation of the pieces. Once Boelhouwer began attending the Outsider Art Fair in 2019, he realized that no one had properly analyzed Jacoulet for who he was and what he represents– an outsider artist, laboring as a foreigner beyond the formal strictures of the dominant artistic training & cultural norms of Japan.
Jacoulet’s father was an academic and diplomat and his mother greatly encouraged his life as an artist. He was a masterful experimenter in technique– using formats, materials, and processes that pushed the boundaries of a rote tradition. His lifestyle as a gender-fluid, openly gay man in post-war Japan was a key element of his outsider status.
Boelhouwer is assisted by Daniel X. O’Neil, an outsider art collector and critic. He owns over 1,500 pieces of art, including work from many artists shown at the Outsider Art Fair. His book, Arte Agora: Art Made, Sold, and Placed in the Public Way, is an explication of a genre of street art that brings commercial and outsider artists into a coherent American tradition.
We are excited about the possibility of launching Japanese Outsider Woodcuts at the Outsider Art Fair in New York in 2022. Please let us know what you think.