About This Print
I Love You (Love Letters), a silkscreen print with an edition size of 11,111 prints, was the result of discussions between Ay-O, Tokuzo Okabe (founder of the first silkscreen printing studio in Japan), gallery owner Fujio Watanuki and others about expanding the appeal of prints to a wider audience and, particularly, a younger audience. Ay-O suggested adapting his 1973 lithograph Love Letter [shown below] for this purpose and in 1974, as described below, the full run of 11,111 prints was completed.
The Original Lithograph
Source: AY-O’s Rainbow Prints Catalogue Raisonne 1954-1979, Sadajirō Kubo, Sohbun-sha, p. 112-113.
In discussing the original 1973 lithograph “Love letter(s)”Ay-O states:
At that time I had just returned from a tour of Mexico. I had bought a picture postcard as the market in Oaxaca, a town famous for its silver craft. It showed a man dressed-up in the continental fashion and holding a bouquet, ready to go courting a lady. I liked the picture, so back in New York I enlarged it into 12 drawings of different sizes. I used six of them, together with three blocks bearing the words “I love you” in the three primary colors, for the “Love Letter”, a lithograph of nine-block printings…. I remember mailing the picture postcard I bought at Oaxaca to President Kennedy for his birthday.
The Silkscreened Edition
Source: AY-O’s Rainbow Prints Catalogue Raisonne 1954-1979, Sadajirō Kubo, Sohbun-sha, p. 146.
Comments of Sadajirō Kubo - The Publisher of the Silkscreen Print
One day in 1974 [Tokuzo] Okabe came to Kiyose with Fujio Watanuki and a group of five or six young people. They discussed printing and selling prints by young artists that would appeal to the younger set, to be handled through a modern print center. I heartily endorsed the idea and suggested that they print a large-number edition so that the price of a print could be lowered. This meant that the prints should be sold not on the merit of the artist’s name but on the appealing subject matter of the print itself. The discussion advanced by leaps and bounds, and two or three weeks later we had arrived at the idea of printing an edition of 11,111 copies. The price was to be one or two thousand yen per print. I provided my lithograph work No. 247, “Love letter”, which I made in Nova Scotia. Everyone approved of this selection, and Okabe printed up No. 267, “Love Letter(s)”, as a silk screen print.
It is no longer clear just who thought up the idea of an edition of 11,111 copies. I remember saying [to] myself that as probably no one had as yet printed up more than 10,000 copies of a work, I should like to go just a little over that figure. I seem to have heard from someone that Mr. [Sadajiro] Kubo heard of this comment of mine and suggested the 11,111 figure, but no one seems to remember for sure. At any rate, the number appealed to me immediately. It may be a romantic bit of witticism, but it is also a bit of fantasy that entices man to enjoy life. I thought it would be fun if the signing and numbering of the 11,111 prints could all be done in a single day, so one day about two or three days before my departure for New York I enlisted the aid of one woman and two men and we got down to work, our fingers protected by Bandaids. About 16 hours later we finished the chore and shook hands and embraced each other in joy.
Note: Young painters and printmakers had a guardian angel in thecritic Sadajirō Kubo, who extended theidea of "collectors' club" — a group of collectors who would contractartists to regularly provide works for purchase — as a vehicle to financiallysupport emerging artists.
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When I entered the art world in 1974, Ay-O’s “I love you (Love Letters)”was the first edition of prints I published. This was an outrageous undertakingat an edition of 11,111 copies, reflecting our ambition to become no. 1 in theworld, at least in terms of silkscreen prints. The completed sheets weredelivered by truck to Ay-O’s atelier, where the artist indulged in a 16-hourmarathon signing session. We both were young! Ay-O’s works can be identifiedin an instant by its rainbow colors, and this is also where they derive theirintense originality from.
Print Details
| IHL Catalog | #1472 |
| Title or Description | I Love You (Love Letters) |
| Series | |
| Artist | Ay-O (b. 1931) |
| Signature |  |
| Seal | |
| Publication Date | 1974 |
| Edition | 1,634/11,111 |
| Publisher | Gendai Hanga Center 現代版画センター [edition エディション ] |
| Printer | Gendai Hanga Center 現代版画センター |
| Impression | excellent |
| Colors | excellent |
| Condition | good - several spots of foxing primarily bottom left margin and stain in left margin |
| Miscellaneous | |
| Genre | modern print - silkscreen |
| Format | |
| H x W Paper | 24 x 17 3/8 in. (61 x 44.1 cm) |
| H x W Image | 20 1/2 x 13 in. (52.1 x 33 cm) |
| Collections This Print | The British Museum 1986,0321,0.71 |
| Reference Literature | AY-O’s Rainbow Prints Catalogue Raisonne 1954-1979, Sadajirō Kubo, Sohbun-sha, p. 112-113, cat. no. 267. |
7/24/2021
4/13/2019
4/13/2019
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