author
Frederick W. Gookin
1853–1936
Best remembered as an early American authority on Japanese prints, his writing helped introduce many English-speaking readers to ukiyo-e and its artists. He also moved easily between art scholarship, banking, and design, which gives his work an unusually practical, collector-minded voice.
1 Audiobook
Japanese Colour-Prints and Their Designers
by Frederick W. Gookin
About the author
Born in 1853 in Ludlow, Vermont, Frederick W. Gookin later lived in Illinois and built a career in Chicago. Archival sources describe him not only as an author, but also as a banker, calligrapher, and designer.
He became especially known for his expertise in Japanese art and prints. Library, museum, and archival records connect him with the Art Institute of Chicago, the Japan Society, and collector Charles Lang Freer, and they show that he wrote and compiled important English-language works on Japanese color prints and their designers.
That mix of scholarship and real-world collecting experience helps explain the tone of his books: informed, organized, and aimed at readers who wanted to understand both the beauty and the history of the works in front of them. He died in 1936.