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Karamatsu Forest and Mountains — から松林
by Mori Masamoto

Original caretaker of this artwork: Private collector

	Artist:	Mori Masamoto — 森正元
	Title:	Karamatsu Forest and Mountains (given title; official title unknown) — から松林
	Series:
	Date of first edition?:	circa 1960-1990
	Publisher (first edition)?:	Self
	Medium (first edition):	Watercolour
	Format (first edition):	Not Set
	Notes (first edition)?:	Thanks to Christian for this database entry.
	Artist Bio:	Mori Masamoto was a Japanese artist who was born in 1912. Little is known about Masamoto. He designed about 16 large-format shin-hanga landscape prints for Adachi Publishing in the 1950s, and about four oban-sized scenes for the publisher Baba Nobuhiko in the late 1950s after Baba re-established his publishing business after it was destroyed in world war 2. He also published at least 16 postcard-sized prints via Baba and perhaps other publishers. Masamoto's large-format shin-hanga scenes are beautifully rendered with wonderful attention to detail including masterful 'bokashi' colour graduation and often have subdued colour palettes . Woodblock prints by Masamoto are very rare, suggesting a single edition with small edition size for each scene (perhaps only 50 to 100 strikes per scene), and as a result are difficult to obtain.