The Hotei Encyclopedia of Japanese Woodblock Prints
'The bulk of the encyclopedia are essays written by fifty experts dealing with the many technical, genre, and evolutionary aspects of the woodblock prints. As I read the encyclopedia from cover to cover, the quality of the essays struck me as consistently quite high, evidence of good editing...For collectors, the encyclopedia offers information on what to look for in quality, artist and publisher identification, and other critical details...The Hotei encyclopedia is an excellent starting point for collectors.' Todd Shimoda, The Asian Review of Books, 2006. ' ... these two volumes are a major achievement. They summarize the current state of the field and its history, both in Japanese and in Western language publications, contain practical information of use to both novice and veteran collectors, and include a large number of indispensable reference materials, many available in English for the first time. Overall, the editors did an excellent job selecting topics and authors for the essays, which provide succinct summaries of their subjects. The best of these go beyond mere summarization and provide a sense of how studies on these topics developed historically, reveal recently addressed avenues of research, use close discussion of specific prints to amplify larger points that place print production within a cultural context, and suggest directions for future scholarship. College Art Association Reviews, Pat Graham.