Elizabeth Keith, was a self-taught artist who was born in Scotland in 1887 and who grew up in England.
In 1915, at age 28, she went to Japan to visit her younger sister, Elspet who was married to J.W. Robertson-Scott, publisher of the Tokyo-based magazine,” The New East.” Her holiday became a stay which lasted nine years.
She painted watercolours of Japan and Korea and travelled widely, making trips to Korea, China, and the Philippines. It was in Japan that she discovered and mastered woodblock printmaking techniques and began to translate her watercolours into prints.
Both her watercolours and woodblock prints were very successful and were exhibited in London and New York as well as Tokyo Sadly, the great Tokyo earthquake and fire of Sept. 1, 1923 destroyed most of Keith’s woodblocks and she returned to England in 1924.
She was in Asia again from 1932 to 1933, during which time she mastered colour etching and her sister, Jessie, helped to promote her works.
She is believed to have produced one hundred woodblock prints and about a dozen colour etchings.
The prints in this collection are from her book “Old Korea. Land of the Morning Calm” which was published by Hutchinson, in London in 1946. The book was co-authored with her sister who provided the text.
Elizabeth Keith died in 1956. In her lifetime, she had the satisfaction of seeing her prints of Asian life acquired by the British Museum, the Musee Guimet in Paris, the National Gallery of Canada, the Honolulu Academy of Arts, and the Museum of Art at the University of Oregon.
