Percy Barkes opened his gallery in York, UK in 1976, selling Japanese woodblock prints. Russian paintings were introduced in 1990. Percy has also been responsible for a permanent display of his stock at LIBERTY in London since 1984.

Most Japanese print dealers specialize in Ukiyo-e prints from the Edo period (1615 - 1868).

Percy has always sought to find the best images from the Meiji (1868 - 1912), Taisho (1912 - 1926) and the Showa (from 1926) periods.

Since 1995 , Percy has visited over 1000 studios in St. Petersburg, seeing over a million paintings and drawings. Maybe only two paintings are acquired from a studio of two hundred and fifty. Most of the paintings and drawings date from 1945 and almost all the artists graduated from the celebrated Repin Academy in St. Petersburg.