Japanese Outsider Woodcuts (JOW) is a new gallery created by Mark Boelhouwer, a longtime collector of woodblock prints created by western artists mimicking and building upon the traditional Ukiyo-e style of Japanese woodcut artists.
The first focus of the gallery is the work of Paul Jacoulet, a French national who lived in Japan most of his life and who is one of the few western artists to have mastered the art of woodblock printing well enough to be recognized in Japan with exhibitions.
Boelhouwer has assembled a large collection of Jacoulet prints developed over decades, based on a deep appreciation of the pieces.
Once Boelhouwer began attending the Outsider Art Fair in 2019, he realized that no one had properly analyzed Jacoulet for who he was and what he represents– an outsider artist, laboring as a foreigner beyond the formal strictures of the dominant artistic training & cultural norms of Japan.
Jacoulet’s father was an academic and diplomat and his mother greatly encouraged his life as an artist. He was a masterful experimenter in technique– using formats, materials, and processes that pushed the boundaries of a rote tradition. His lifestyle as a gender-fluid, openly gay man in post-war Japan was a key element of his outsider status.
Boelhouwer and Daniel X. O’Neil, an Outsider art collector and critic, have published a booklet, Paul Jacoulet: Outsider Artist– A reconsideration of Japanese Woodcut Art from a Parisian in Japan, 1934 – 1960, to codify the characteristics that make Jacoulet a part of the Outsider tradition.
