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| Artist: | Bakufu Ohno (1888-1976) — 大野麦風 |
| Title: | Shrimps (Kuruma Ebi) — クルマエビ |
| Series: | Familiar Fishes of Nippon — 大日本魚類画集 |
| Date of first edition?: | 1939/1 |
| Date of this artwork?: | 1940s/50 (may not be accurate) |
| Publisher (first edition)?: | Nishinomiya Shoin — 西宮書院 |
| Publisher (this edition)?: | Kyoto Hanga-In — 京都版画院 |
| Medium (first edition): | Woodblock |
| Medium (this edition): | Woodblock |
| Format (first edition): | Oban
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| Format (this edition): | Oban |
| DB artwork code: | 36630 |
| Notes (first edition)?: |
| From Volume 2, print number 5. |
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| Notes (this edition)?: |
| The following information was taken from the original web listing of this artwork. Note that there may be some inaccuracies:
Original Japanese Woodblock Print by Bafuku Ohno, 1888-1976. He was an honored painter and printmaker in Japan, a member of the Hyogo Prefecture Academy of Fine Arts.
I believe this print is titled "Shrimp". It is from his famous Great Japanese Fish Picture Collection, circa 1940. This series, my limited research indicates, consists of 72 prints of fresh and saltwater fish & crustaceans. This print is in it's original mat. The actual print dimensions are 16" x 11 1/4 " .
This is a gentle print, a study in muted colors of brown, blue, yellow, peach and red. Please take the time to enlarge the photos and appreciate the attention to detail taken on each shrimp. The upper body and head seem simple at first, but are small masterpieces when you stop to examine them. The colors of the background wash and blend beautifully with their subject. Where some of this artist's prints have powdered mica applied to give a fishscale sheen, this print has none. It is a quiet piece.
The print itself is in good to very good condition (in my amateur assessment), but there are some flaws to be aware of:
PRINT:A piece of paper (marked "Shrimp") was paperclipped to the lower right corner of the mat. I believe the paperclip was there for many years. The margin of the print shows 1/16" or less of a tear, or bunching, from the paperclip.
After years of flat storage the mat has discolored or yellowed the print's margin (largest yellowing is 3/8" on the right side). This shows especially on the pale yellow portion of the print's background. Also, the glue used to attached the print to the mat has bleached the print in each upper corner.
None of these flaws are visible when the print is in the mat.
MAT: The paperclip left an indent on the lower right of the mat and also wore away part of the middle Japanese symbol at the lower right of the mat. The inner left side of the mat has two small but deep creases.
Two of the photos in this listing are of the labels, one in English and one in Japanese. They are on the original brown paper wrapping the set of prints were purchased in. They will not be included in this sale, they are for reference photos only.
Please notice I have two other prints from this artist listed on ebay - trout and sweetfish. I purchased eight originally. Two have sold, two I am keeping for my collection (goldfish and eel - which is an amazing study in cobalt blue). The remaining print, koi, we are still deciding if we will keep or list.
I bought them just down the road at a very small antique shop that also does estate sales. The shop owner told me they came from a local house that had belonged to an elderly couple and they had purchased the prints in Japan. He did not have the time to research them, but suggested I should. |
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| Artist Bio: |
Bakufu Ohno (1888-1976) was born in Tokyo. He moved to Kansai after the great Kantou earthquake in 1923. Ohno exhibited oil paintings at Teiten in 1929. He was an honorary member of the Hyogo Prefecture Academy of Fine Arts, and a member of Taiheiyogakai. Ohno produced many landscape and fish prints, including the Great Japanese Fish Picture Collection (Dai Nihon gyorui gashu) in 1940, which was published by Kyoto Hanga-in; blocks were carved by Matsuda and Kikuda, printed by Shinagawa, Nagae, Uchida and Ohno.
大野麥風（1888-1976、本名：要蔵）は、東京で生まれ、初めは長原孝太郎の指導を受け、洋画を学びました。1909年の第3回文部省美術展覧会で画壇に登場してからは、白馬会・太平洋画会・光風会などにも出品したものの、やがて、洋画から日本画に転向し、1919年の第1回帝国美術院展覧会では、日本画で入選しています。
さらに、木版画を手がけるようになった麥風は、1937年に西宮書院(現在の京都版画院)から出版された代表作 『大日本魚類画集』で、原画を担当し、当代一流の文化人の協力を得て、「原色木版二百度手摺り」といわれる色鮮やかな木版画集を生み出しました。会員制度で頒布されたこの500部限定の木版画集は、1944年まで各回12点、6期に分けて断続的に刊行され、麥風は水族館では飽き足らず、和歌浦沖で潜水艇に乗り、魚の生態を観察し、細部にまでこだわった作品を作り上げました。 |
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