| Notes (this edition)?: |
| The following information was taken from the original web listing of this artwork. Note that there may be some inaccuracies:
4 Japanese Wood Prints Mt. Fuji 1940s
Here are 4 very nice Japanese Wood Block Prints of Mt. Fuji. These were , I was told, purchased in Japan right after WWII. They are undated. Each print is matted on a 5.75 by 7.5 inch thick paper. The actual print is 3.75 by 5.75 inches. It is attached to the heavy paper with glue at the very top of the print. Each print is numbered on the bottom left: 1, 2, 3, and 4. There is a description (in English) of the prints, printed on another matting, describing how they were made. The prints are of Mt. Fuji s follows: Taken from Mishima, Tokaido (from South-East); Taken from Izu Mito, (from South); Taken from Utsuno, (from South); and Taken from Lake Ashinoko, Hakone, (from South-East).
These 4 prints have excellent detail, and fantastic color. As nice as you will find. They are in mint condition. I do not know who the artist is, but their signature is shown in a photo below.
These come in a decorated paper folder, with some Japanese writing, and a picture of Mt. Fuji on it. These really look much nicer than the photos show. On the card is printed "Almost all of the Japanese wood-prints belong to those called Itame Mokuhan which are printed by the side-cut wood, while a few of them are printed by the lengthwise-cut wood named Oguchi Mokuhan. We feel a soft and delicate impression for the former, and are impressed by a rather hard and rough feeling from the latter. Generally speaking, the ordinary Japanese wood-prints are produced by the combined effort of the original painter, the engraver and the printing polisher." |
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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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