Details

Helen Hyde presents the viewer with the archetypical subject of a mother and child. In Hyde’s work, we encounter a Japanese woman in a kimono holding her infant covered in blankets. The mother is shown making baby talk, much to the infant’s amusement. The scene is supported by a traditional Japanese screen rendered with paintings of hanging wisteria, irises, and a riverbed. The backdrop’s composition perfectly cradles the scene and echoes the two central figure’s postures as well as the composition’s oval vignette.

It is interesting to observe how the winds of influence carry. Hyde became interested in Japan through Japonisme, Ukiyo-e, and the paintings of Mary Cassatt. It’s instructive to see this work through this prism—a traditional Western artistic theme reintroduced through a design brimming with Asian aesthetics and a native Japanese printmaking medium.

Connoisseur's Note

This print is among Helen Hyde’s earliest works. The design was conceived and executed contemporaneously to the work of Mary Cassatt and other Western artists producing Japonisme that was directly influenced by Asia and particularly Japan. This impression was printed in Japan while Hyde took up residency in Tokyo. The print is in an exceedingly fine state of preservation.