GUEST: My parents bought it at a show at the May Company in Cleveland. And the May Company is a big department store, and they were having a showing of the artist's work. They bought this picture for $139. I believe my parents met him because we have a signature on the back of one of the programs.
APPRAISER: This is a fantastic example of the work of Shiko Munakata, who is one of the most important Japanese artists of the 20th century. He's a modern master of printmaking. And this is a very good example of his work from the mid-1960s. 1967 was when the show was at the May Company.
GUEST: Mm-hmm. Right.
APPRAISER: It was actually his third trip to the United States.
GUEST: Oh.
APPRAISER: And it went on, this show, to the Smithsonian and the Brooklyn Museum. So he really already reached, uh, quite a level of notoriety in the United States. At the time, you wouldn't acquire the actual print. They would have an example, and then the artist would then later produce the one that the customer ordered.
GUEST: I know that my father had put a notation on the bottom of the, uh, program that it would arrive in six weeks.
APPRAISER: Yes, so...
GUEST: So he didn't take it home that day.
APPRAISER: The work might be slightly different from the work that they saw. Part of that is his technique, because they're multiples, they are woodcut prints, printed from a wood block.
GUEST: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: But each one has its unique qualities. There's a lot of variation in his prints, and then the coloring can, can vary. And he printed them not like a modern edition, where they're each numbered. He would just produce one at a time per order. The black ink is printed from the carving, and then they're colored from behind with watercolor, and it bleeds through the thin Japanese paper. This print is "Ode to Shinkai." And "shinkai" in Japanese means an uncultivated open space, or something uncharted, or a deep sea. So it, it really sums up this print. It's a wonderful image. It shows his incorporation of landscape and Japanese text. The colors are really fresh. It's been well looked after. Do you have a sense of the value of this print?
GUEST: Well, when I inherited it, it was appraised at $5,000 for the estate tax. And then later, we had somebody else look at it who said it could be worth up to $15,000.
APPRAISER: $15,000 would be more of a retail price. I'm more comfortable with an auction value, because that's what I see more of. I would value a print like this at auction between $6,000 and $9,000.
GUEST: Okay, so kind of right in the middle of the two appraisals I got.
APPRAISER: Munakata prints reached their peak in the '90s as far as collectibility. But fine examples like this, with color, with a lot of expressive qualities, are very collectible.
GUEST: Okay, great.
