Seagulls (Kamome Bar) - Vintage Japanese Art

About the Art

Next to Keisei Shin-Mikawashima Station in Tokyo's Arakawa ward, there was a bar called Kamome. Seagull, in Japanese. It served both Japanese and Western liquor, wa-yo-shu, which in the 1920s and 30s was a genuine statement of intent. These were the bars where the modern city came to mix its tastes, literally and otherwise.

The matchbox they printed for the tables is quietly remarkable. Three seagulls cross a pale sky above a lone sailboat. Muted olive, cream and black, with red characters cutting through at the top. The whole composition feels closer to a woodblock print than an advertisement. The kind of small, considered object that a person might pocket at the end of an evening and keep.

Keisei Shin-Mikawashima Station still operates on the Keisei Main Line today. The bar is long gone.

Restored from archival source material, this is one of the most understated vintage Japanese wall art prints in the collection and one of the most enduring. For anyone who wants their walls to hold a story that most people will never know to ask about.