Artists in Residence — Revisited Miyazu 1908 / 2026

In April 1908 Karl Walser and Bernhard Kellermann arrived by steamer in Miyazu, on Japan’s west coast. Walser drew, Kellermann wrote. The drawings survived, and so did the places — but the drawings gave no indication of where they were made. Noriko Matsuda has found the places again, Dominique Uldry has photographed them, and Osamu Okuda, co-editor of the book, contributes the foreword. The book sets the drawings of 1908 beside the photographs of today, fully in English and Japanese. The subscription makes it possible.

The subscription

This anniversary book will be published because it is subscribed in advance. Subscribers help to pay for printing, paper and binding — and receive a copy of the first edition, their name in the list of subscribers and, from the second tier upwards, a numbered cliché print after Dominique Uldry: the garden of the Mikami House that Karl Walser drew in 1908. Four tiers, each limited in number.

Tier 1

The book, signed

CHF 500 · €530

1×

1×

1×

Plus your name in the book’s list of subscribers.

Limited to 200 places

Subscribe · CHF 500

Tier 2 · Recommended

Book and cliché print

CHF 800 · €850

1×

1×

1×

1×

Plus your name in the list. The print is numbered; subject: the garden of the Mikami House.

Limited to 60 prints

Subscribe · CHF 800

Tier 3 · Preferred

Two copies, one large print

CHF 1800 · €1900

2×

1×

1×

1×

Plus your name in the list. Large print, numbered; subject: the garden of the Mikami House.

Limited to 25 subscriptions

Subscribe · CHF 1800

Tier 4 · Patron

Named as a patron

CHF 3500 · €3700

3×

1×

1×

2×

Named as a patron in the book. Two large prints of the Mikami Garden, consecutively numbered.

Limited to 10 subscriptions

Subscribe · CHF 3500

Shipping included · Withdraw at any time until the book goes to press · Pay in Swiss francs or euros, by credit card, in Switzerland also by TWINT · Subscribe by 31 October 2026 for the low numbers.

What each tier includes

Bernhard Kellermann and Karl Walser: Ein Spaziergang in Japan (1912) and Sassa yo Yassa (1920), Paul Cassirer, Berlin

The original volumes. In 1908 the Berlin art dealer Paul Cassirer paid for his protégé Karl Walser to travel to Japan; the writer Bernhard Kellermann went with him, and on 24 April the two reached Miyazu. The journey produced two books, published by Cassirer and designed and illustrated by Walser: Kellermann’s travel account “Ein Spaziergang in Japan” (A Walk in Japan, first edition 1910) and “Sassa yo Yassa. Japanische Tänze” (Japanese Dances, first edition 1911), with collotypes and etchings after Walser’s studies. “Imagination and objectivity are firmly joined in Walser’s artistic physiognomy,” Hans Trog wrote in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung in 1909. The first subscription at patron level receives one copy of each: “Ein Spaziergang in Japan”, 1912 edition, 272 pages, half leather with gilt top edge, ownership stamp on the title page; “Sassa yo Yassa”, third edition 1920, with a colour frontispiece and eleven plates, three of them in colour.

The subject of the cliché print

Dominique Uldry has chosen one photograph for the subscription: the garden of the Mikami House — the same garden Karl Walser drew in 1908. It is printed in landscape format on fine-art paper with a white margin; the title appears at the lower left, the number at the right.

Garden of the Mikami House, Miyazu 2026. The same garden Walser drew in 1908.

After delivery to subscribers the book will also be available in bookshops, probably at around CHF 70. The subscription edition is signed, numbered and available only here. You subscribe directly with the publisher, not through a platform. Once you have subscribed, you receive access to the subscribers’ page with an advance selection of images, a workshop report and the schedule. Payment is in Swiss francs or euros — the currency depends on the country of delivery — by credit card (Visa, Mastercard, American Express), in Switzerland also by TWINT. Shipping is included. The book is dispatched after publication in spring 2027; mugs, T-shirts and prints are sent beforehand. The full amount is due on subscription. Subscribed amounts are not used until the book is passed for press: until it goes to press, you may withdraw your subscription at any time and reclaim the full amount. After that, the amount is committed to printing and the book is delivered after publication. Should the book not appear, the amount subscribed will be refunded in full. Within fourteen days of subscribing you may withdraw without giving reasons. The cliché print transfers ownership of the object, not reproduction rights. Further questions are answered on the FAQ page.

The journey of 1908

Foreword — Osamu Okuda

The foreword is by Osamu Okuda, art historian and co-editor of the book. He initiated the project, brought the contributors together and obtained archival material from Walser’s circle for the book. In his foreword he considers what the Japanese months meant for Walser’s work.

Okuda has worked in Switzerland since the early 1980s and knows both sides — the research in Bern and the places in Japan.

Karl Walser, Onnagata as Akoya, 1908. Watercolour and pencil, 32.6 × 24.7 cm. Kunstmuseum Bern.

Walser’s Miyazu, found again — Noriko Matsuda

The main essay is by Noriko Matsuda, Associate Professor of architectural and urban history at Kyoto Prefectural University. Through fieldwork and historical photographs she established where Walser stood and matched the drawings to real places in Miyazu. She presented her findings at the Miyazu symposium on 30 August 2026; for the book she adds newly researched archival material.

Her essay shows each identification as a pair: the drawing on the left, today’s photograph on the right. Both are shown with margins, because at this point both are evidence — not atmosphere, but proof. Where an identification is well founded but cannot be proven, the caption says so.

Noriko Matsuda. Photo: private.

Karl Walser, “House with Garden and Pond”, 1908. Pencil, ink and watercolour, 15.3 × 19.2 cm. Kunstmuseum Bern, Verein der Freunde.

Dominique Uldry, Garden of the Mikami House, Miyazu 2026. Veranda, pond and stepping stones stand in the same relation as in the drawing. The same photograph as above, here paired as it appears in the book.

Karl Walser, “Niō, guardian deity of Buddhist temples”, 1908. Pastel, 20.3 × 15.8 cm. Kunstmuseum Bern, Verein der Freunde. This sheet, too, could be matched to a place in Miyazu.

From the teahouse drawings to Akoya

In the upper rooms of Miyazu’s teahouses Walser drew geishas again and again. These sheets cannot be tied to a place and therefore do not belong in the comparative section — in the book they form a group of their own alongside the drawings tied to places.

It is also the best-known group: the later paintings and the plates of “Sassa yo Yassa” grew out of it. In the book the sheets are shown with margins and visible paper edges, in a quiet sequence, with no text on the same page; the captions give technique, dimensions and owner, as far as these have been established.

Karl Walser, Kabuki theatre scene (Akoya), 1908. Oil on wood, 69.3 × 93.5 cm. Gottfried Keller Foundation / Neues Museum Biel.

Karl Walser, Geisha in a kimono with shishi pattern, 1908. Pencil and watercolour, signed and dated lower right.

Seeing where another has seen — Dominique Uldry

Karl Walser, “Japanese Village Street”. Illustration in Bernhard Kellermann, “Sassa yo Yassa. Japanische Tänze”, 1911. According to Noriko Matsuda, the sheet shows the row of houses on the Kyō-kaidō in Miyazu.

Kyō-kaidō, Miyazu 2026. Photograph by Dominique Uldry. The street where Walser stood in 1908 — today.

From all contributions, one book — Digiboo Verlag

The contributors

Bern, 9 September 2026. Dominique Uldry (left) and Osamu Okuda going through the material for the book. Photo: Digiboo Verlag.

What is needed. Production, translation and distribution of the book cost CHF 61,800. Foundations, bookshop sales and the publisher’s own contribution cover part of this; the subscription covers the larger remainder. Around 120 subscriptions at the first tier are enough to fund the book. There are 295 places in all, spread across the four tiers; each tier shows how many remain when you subscribe. Subscriptions are open until 31 January 2027, after which the book goes to press. Those who subscribe by 31 October 2026 come first in the list of subscribers and receive the low edition numbers of the cliché prints. Not yet decided? Sign up below and we will let you know when the selection of images is settled.

The book

Karl Walser’s work has been in the public domain since 2014. For the reproductions on this page, originals and permissions are being obtained from the owning institutions. The subscription gifts use Walser’s kokyū plate from “Sassa yo Yassa” (1920), his drawing of a geisha in a kimono with shishi pattern (1908) and Dominique Uldry’s photograph of the garden of the Mikami House in Miyazu.

Provider and terms

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