Bertha Lum

Bertha Boynton Lum (1869 – 1954) was an American artist known for helping popularize the Japanese and Chinese woodblock print outside of Asia.

Early life In May 1869, Lum was born as Bertha Boynton Bull in Tipton, Iowa. Lum's father was Joseph W. Bull (1841–1923), a lawyer and her mother was Harriet Ann Boynton (1842–1925), a school teacher. Both of Lum's parents were amateur artists. Lum had a sister and two brothers, Clara, Carlton, and Emerson. From November 1901 to March 1902, she studied figure drawing at the Art Institute of Chicago and was influenced by the Japanese techniques of Arthur Wesley Dow in his book Composition, which was published in 1899. Toward the end of her stay in Japan, she found a shop that reproduced old prints. The shop sold her some woodcutting tools that she began using upon her return to Minneapolis. On January 23, 1907, she went to Japan for a 14-week stay. With help from a professor at the Imperial Art School in Tokyo, she was introduced to the block cutter Igami Bonkutsu (1875–1933) in Yokohama. Lum worked with Bonkutsu for two months. After she learned how to cut blocks, Bonkutsu introduced her to the printer Nishimura Kamakichi, with whom she worked for another four weeks.

In 1912 Lum was the only female artist to exhibit at the Tokyo International Exhibition. She was awarded a silver medal at the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition for her color woodcuts. Her first illustrated book, Gods, Goblins, and Ghosts, based on her travels in Japan, was published in 1922. The same year, she moved to China and began learning Chinese woodcut methods. the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, and in private collections.

Lum was a member of the Asiatic Society of Japan, California Society of Etchers (now California Society of Printmakers), and Print Makers Society of California.

Personal life Lum lived in California (San Francisco and Hollywood) from 1917 until 1922 when she moved to Peking, China. For the next thirty years she divided her time between California, China, and Japan. She divorced Burt Lum in the 1920s.

Her younger daughter Eleanor "Peter" Lum married the diplomat Sir Colin Tradescant Crowe and became an author. In 1936 her elder daughter Catherine married Antonio Riva, an Italian pilot during World War I who was executed in 1951 in Beijing for an alleged plot to assassinate Mao Zedong. Lum had been staying with Catherine at the time of Riva's arrest and was herself placed under house arrest.

In 1953 Lum left China and moved with Catherine to Genoa, Italy. She died in Genoa, Italy in February 1954.

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