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Notes (1st edition)
Publisher (this edition): Self Self
Date of this item:
Notes (this edition)
These notes were written by the original owner/seller/auctioner of the item and may be inaccurate.:
"Procession"
Image of Three People, in close communion, with dedicated gestures and expressive glance. Bright colors of green, red, black and white on yellow ground.
Size: 26 x 22.25 inches
Signed in white: Sadao Watanabe
Edition: 7/50.
Dated: 1962.
In good condition; some fading: margins in bright yellow, these were at one time covered by a mat and thus escaped fading; two small tape remains to verso with Yoseido Gallery label.

Artist Biography

Sadao Watanabe was born in 1913 in Ushigome, Tokyo. He was brought up in Tokyo and lived there all of his life.

His father died at the age of 43 in 1923 at which time Sadao was ten years old. One of their neighbors invited Sadao to church-- the Ichigaya Daimachi Church.

His first reactions to Christianity were negative. "In the beginning I had a negative reaction to Christianity. The atmosphere was so full of 'the smell of butter' so foreign to a Japanese."

After the death of his father, Sadao quit school and started to work in order to support himself. He was an apprentice to a dyer and gradually he learned the technique of Katazome (stencil printing).

In 1943, he exhibited his first Biblical print, "The Story of Abraham" at an exhibition of the Tokyo Prefectural Craftsmen.

In 1985, he had completed 380 prints, 80 dealt with the old testament and 280 with the new testament. The remainder are of Biblically related stories. By 1985, he had already completed 11 different prints of Noah, 15 of the Three Wisemen, and 20 of the Last Supper.
Same as Full0!

The Three Marys


Artist: Sadao Watanabe
Description: Image of Three Women, in close communion, with dedicated gestures and expressive glance. The caring glances the Three Women exhange with each other are realistic and intensely human. Watanabe uses bright colors of green, red, black and white on yellow ground.

Issued: 1962
Medium: color stencil
Edition: 7/50
Condition: Background color slightly faded; some pencil to lower margin, possibly trimmed, discoloration to verso, tape to upper verso margin.
Image Size: 26 x 22.5 inches [approx.]
Framed Size: unframed
Signed: in white: Sadao Watanabe
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