Born in Iowa, Bertha Lum (1869–1954) came of age when the vogue for Japonisme was visible in venues as various as the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and Arthur Wesley Dow’s art textbook, “Composition.” Her marriage to lawyer Bert Lum in 1903 provided the resources to travel to Japan where she sought out printmaking tools and know-how on her honeymoon.
A Rainy Twlight clearly invokes rainy scenes by ukiyo-e masters including Hiroshige. Lum’s treatment is much more dreamy and soft focus than the traditionally printed Japanese works.