By Joshua Encinias
Published on November 7, 2007
Dr. Patrick Rowe, Pensacola Junior College professor, is preserving art history one illustration at a time.
Recently retired from his 27-year summer job excavating Etruscan artifacts in Italy, Rowe has run his hands through enough Italian dirt to know what it takes to preserve artifacts, and now art.
The first of many upcoming exhibits to feature his collections, “Hokusai: Master of Book Illustration,” opened on Nov. 5 at the University of West Florida Japan House.
Rowe began collecting the work of Katsushika Hokusai, the enigmatic 19th Century leader of ukiyo-e woodblock printing, in 1999.
Ukiyo-e was an affordable artwork for the townspeople where the pieces were made. Cheap labor and mass production of the woodblocks led to its rise in popularity.
Most of the Hokusai illustrations in Rowe’s collection were for common people, “But that’s all right with me because the theme of my work is art for the masses, “Rowe said.
Throughout his 89 years, Hokusai undertook 60 pen names for the different stages of his life and the art he was producing, making sure he didn’t fall into a trap of the static artist.
Hokusai’s artistic concentration was always on traditional ukiyo-e subject matter. This ranged from city life, sumo wrestlers to landscapes.
Hokusai created his most important work after age 60. The series “Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji” was created from ages 66 to 73. Hokusai’s personal obsession of Mount Fuji stems from his belief in Nichiren, a sect of Buddhism that links the mountain to the secret of immortality.
Hokusai’s religious longing for eternal life is clear in the statements he left behind.
“If heaven gives me 10 more years, or an extension of even five years, I shall surely become a true artist,” Hokusai said, according an artist profile by Shelley Essak from About.com.
Rowe’s continual work effort is reflective of the artist that he holds dear.
“Doing too many things at the same time is my problem, but I’m making progress,” Rowe said. “I do nothing but lecture classes, this semester I have around 240 students. I’m spending 100 percent of my time teaching and 100 percent of my time doing research.”
<b>”It snowballed.”</b>
In 1999 Rowe was introduced to Ebay. Through the site he hoped to gain access to major cities where significant art was for sale.
While searching for artwork, Rowe discovered a seller known as Shingo. He was selling the most Hokusai pieces out of anyone on the site.
Rowe got to know Shingo through cyber space and became friends. Once Shingo discovered Rowe was using the prints for scholarly purposes, he began getting artwork in bulk for a very good price.
His subsequent buys ended up working out the same way.
“It snowballed. I started making all these friends,” Rowe said.
The interview with Rowe was in the art department’s conference room. Students and teachers tiptoed through the room, but PJC’s photography teacher, Warren Thompson, made his presence known.
Thompson inadvertently has his hand in the Hokusai show, having introduced Rowe to eBay.
Thompson has also helped with the production of Rowe’s book, teaching him the basics of Photoshop over this last summer.
“He had to learn how to photograph the works. Basically I just worked with him on Photoshop because he didn’t know anything to begin with,” Thompson said.
But now Thompson is admiring the work Rowe and student Zeke Hazewinkel have put forth in the finalized poster for the show’s Nov. 9 debut.
<b>From a hobby to exhibit</b>
Initially Rowe bought art as a hobby.
“I never dreamed I’d have enough for a show with just one artist,” Rowe said.
Hokusai prints aren’t the only works which Dr. Rowe collects. He nearly has 900 prints from Mucha, Beardsley, Hokusai, Mauldin and Daumier.
He would get 20 pieces by one artist at a time, but wanted to wait until he was retired to put on shows.
The year 2008 marks Daumier’s 200th birthday. Rowe didn’t want to miss this important year in Daumier’s history, so he forwent his retirement plan and began production of the show early. It was quickly picked up by Florida State University.
Because a full staff is helming the Daumier exhibit, Rowe decided to create a small scale Hokusai exhibit for the Japan House at UWF.
“Hokusai: Master of Book Illustration” required Rowe to write the text, preserve the art and research without the help of a staff.
Rowe made a book to coincide with the Japan House exhibit.
“I thought for this first book, because Hokusai’s books were all handmade, I’d make the book myself,” Rowe said. “When I wrote the book I wanted it to be written on a level that wasn’t written for idiots, but a scholarly work. But I also wanted anybody interested to be able to understand the art and the process.”
<b>Saving the books</b>
Hokusai’s history is foggy with mythos of his peculiar behavior. The sheer amount of odd Hokusai stories leads Rowe to believe that some of them must be true.
“As a teacher he may have been difficult to live with,” Rowe said. “Supposedly he was a real slob. He didn’t like to clean his house, he just liked to work. Every time his house got too messy, instead of cleaning up the house he would just move.”
Rowe is somewhat of an eccentric himself.
His office door has a faded picture of Rodney Dangerfield, Master Shake from “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” and 12 “I Voted” stickers. The inside of his office is disheveled with paperwork, planks of wood and posters.
From his office Rowe pulled out color copies of Hokusai’s most provocative work.
“The octopus was often times shown in the art of Hokusai. It has a real sensuous meaning, because there are all these tentacles and an octopus could make love to a woman,” Rowe said.
He was referring to “Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife” where two octopi make love to a female pearl diver.
No one can say why Hokusai created these prints, but Rowe knows one thing: he’s out to save them from defacement.
Some dealers will buy whole Hokusai books then cut out the pictures and resell them to make a large profit. Each individual picture is not emotional or spectacular on its own because the books were conceived to flow with a theme.
“When you take one of the books and you cut it apart, that artistic concept is ruined and gone forever, “Rowe said. “When I buy those Hokusai books, I swear this is true, sometimes I get this feeling that I’m saving the books from destruction.”