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| Artist: | Asano Takeji — 浅野竹二 |
| Title: | Rain in Shinnyodo — 真如堂雨 |
| Series: | |
| Date of first edition?: | 1952 |
| Publisher (first edition)?: | Unsodo — 芸艸堂 |
| Publisher (this edition)?: | Unsodo — 芸艸堂 |
| Medium (first edition): | Woodblock |
| Medium (this edition): | Woodblock |
| Format (first edition): | Oban
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| Format (this edition): | Oban |
| DB artwork code: | 45383 |
| Notes (first edition)?: |
There are two dated editions of this scene, the first edition dated 1952, and the second edition dated 1953.
First edition print by Takeji Asano titled “Rain in Shinnyodo” dated Showa 27 (1952). The artist signature is on the lower left corner. The left margin has the title at top, seal of the publisher Unsodo at centre, then the printer Shinmi and the carver Okura at bottom, along with dating text. There is a watermark in the lower left corner.
The greens in this print are highly fugitive and will fade to aqua-blue (keep it away from strong illumination). |
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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:
This is the first edition with 1952 dating text. Note that the greens in this print have faded to blue.
Takeji Asano (1900-1998) woodblock print -“Rain in Shinnyodo”. This print is oban size measuring 10 3/4” wide by 15 3/4” tall, with an image size of 9 1/2” by 14 1/4”. Published by Unsodo, this print has the Unsodo seal “Unsodo Han”, carver's seal “Okura”, printer's seal “Shinmi”, and kanji dating “Showa 28” (1953) in left margin. Typical Unsodo black smudge marks in margin, "kento cut" from the printing process in lower right corner and Unsodo “Un” watermark in lower left corner. "Takeji" signature in black in the lower left corner. Title printed in English in the bottom margin. Good color (note to deep brown in the pagoda structure) and crisp image lines with great detail and wonderful “bokashi” shading. Some rub marks with damage to image and small holes in upper left (at branch and pagoda corner) and lower right of image (footpath and corner of porch near the solitary figure with umbrella). Minor toning throughout. Tape residue marks on back margins and some wrinkling of the top margin from having previously been matted and framed. See photos for more information about the condition of this print.
This is presumed to be a first or early edition because of the kanji dating. According to an article at ukiyoe-gallery.com by Adreas Grund and Thomas Crossland, when Asano and other artists ended their association with Unsodo around 1960, the publisher removed the carved “key block” date figures from their original blocks before making additional prints, so the later prints do not include the kanji dating. |
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| Artist Bio: |
Asano Takeji was born in Kyoto in 1900 and studied art in his youth. He graduated from the Kyoto City School of Fine Arts in 1919 and subsequently from the Kyoto City Specialist School of Painting in 1923. One of his early teachers was the artist and printmaker Tsuchida Bakusen, with whom he studied Japanese-style painting. Asano helped to organise the Kyoto Creative Print Society (Kyoto Sosaku-Hanga Kyokai) in 1929.
In 1930, Asano contributed several designs to a series of prints titled "Creative Prints of Twelve Months in new Kyoto" (Sosaku-hanga shin Kyoto junikagetsu). These prints were published by Uchida. The other artists contributing to this series were Benji Asada and Tomikichiro Tokuriki, also members of the Kyoto Creative Print Society. Asano's work as a shin hanga print designer continued throughout the 1930's, but along the way he learned the skills of carving and printing. This enabled him to create his own self-carved and self-printed series of landscape prints titled "Noted Views in the Kyoto-Osaka Area" (Kinki meisho fukei) in 1947.
During the 1950's, Asano designed numerous landscape prints for the publisher Unsodo. These popular landscape prints are still being reprinted today. Original Unsodo prints have the Japanese date printed in the margin, while the modern reprints lack the date. Inspired by the encouragement of the Lithuanian-American social realism artist Ben Shahn, who once visited him in his studio and remained his friend, Asano established a freer artistic style often featuring animals in bold colours, later in his career. Asano continued to work as a printmaker during the 1970's and 80's. These late prints were simple and often humorous, signed with the letters T.A. and the date.
This information has been excerpted from various web sources and from Merritt and Yamada's Guide to Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints: 1900-1975.
浅野 竹二（あさの たけじ、明治33年（1900年）10月24日-平成10年（1998年）2月10日）
京都の日本画家、版画家。京都市立絵画専門学校で日本画を専攻、途中油絵に手をそめましたが、再び日本画に復帰、土田麦僊の率いる「山南塾」に入塾し、国画創作協会展に出品するなど日本画家として活躍しました。 |
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