Interview with the artist
In this 2016 interview, Hatsumi Sensei discusses the paintings featured on our prints.
The First Dojo Giga Art Exhibition
Hatsumi Sensei exhibited a selection of his paintings at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo, in February of 2017. Until the time of the exhibition, he had displayed some of them at his dojo, but this was an unprecedented opportunity for the public.
To publicize and commemorate this historic exhibition, we made a set of 13 prints. Each print was professionally designed and photographed, and printed on acid-free, archival quality paper, made to last 100 years. The printing method we used produced great results, but was only economical at large print volumes so we’ll never make these again.
Each set of 13 prints includes one hand-numbered Exhibition Print which features the date and location of Sensei's first Dojo Giga art exhibition. We only made 500 of these exhibition prints — they're sure to be prized by collectors.
After printing, we trimmed our prints to two commercial paper sizes 24 x 36 inch and A1 (594 x 841 mm). At these commercial paper sizes, nice frames can be found at great prices.
All the Prints are Sold. Right?
Dojo Art Books has no more prints but the Dayton Bujinkan Dojo has a small quantity. (We sent the last prints to Dayton, Ohio so participants at Nagato Sensei's 2021 Taikai could purchase them.) While they last, you can order here: tinylink.net/MANIT
Download the PDFs
Sensei’s paintings don’t pull punches. Understanding his works requires knowledge of Japanese language, religion, history and the specific traditions of his dojo. The Dojo Giga books (Heaven and the upcoming Earth) help make the his artworks accessible by offering an appendix with commentary, essays for context, and comments from the artist. We also offer PDF documents (one for each print) which you can download. Eight paintings featured on the prints (plus the Exhibition Print) appeared in Heaven so these PDFs are already available below. Four paintings featured on the prints will appear in Earth and those PDFs will be posted below as we get closer to Earth print date. We hope this information helps you enjoy your prints.
Success!
Our prints are displayed in Sensei's Dojo in Noda and private dojos worldwide, but I enjoy seeing them outside dojos best. In homes, offices, restaurants, and bars — that's where people who would otherwise have no opportunity to connect with Hatsumi Sensei, can see his brushwork and talk with us about what the paintings mean. I consider that exposure success. Thank you for your support!
Dojo Art Books is sold out of prints but the Dayton Bujinkan Dojo has a small quantity. (We sent these to Dayton, Ohio so participants at Nagato Sensei's 2021 Taikai could purchase them.) While they last, you can order here: tinylink.net/MANIT