Yamada Shoten — Attraction in Tokyo

I have dealt in Japanese woodblock illustrated books professionally for almost 50; years. I have tried not to "collect" material for myself as so many beautiful things pass through my hands that I am or should be satisfied with that ....

And yet I look around my little apartment here in Kyoto and there are paintings and prints and even art pottery everywhere. and the majority were obtained from Yamada Shoten. I cannot control myself when I visit them.

They are in my experience the most knowledgeable and least pretentious of art lovers. The shop is full of wonders, for those who take the time to see them My advice always (and it has made me a very good living) is not to decide you are looking for a certain thing and nothing else will do. then you are always looking but never seeing... See what's there and let it seduce you. and maybe a brief attraction may turn into a whole new love affair.

Peace. these are times we could all use a...

I had such a lovely experience here. I knew I wanted to buy a Meiji-era ukio-e as a gift and saw some prints that I liked in the catalogue, mentioned them in store and they showed me which ones were still available. They pulled out a few and then let me just sit and consider which ones I would like to take home. I ended up leaving with two beautiful prints. I felt absolutely no pressure to buy anything which just made the experience so much better. And compared to other stores in the area I felt the prices were reasonable.

They have an incredibly wide selection of original and re-prints in the store, however if you are looking for something special I would recommend looking up the catalogue before you...

I liked this place so much I made a point of returning to it later on my trip. Excellent selection of prints and a small but strong selection of art books. You can literally spend days in here digging through all of the Ukiyo prints which range from traditional to modern. Found some great souvenirs and wish I could have bought some of the art but I had no way of getting it home :(

Will be...