Kawase Hasui Figurative Prints
Japanese, 1883-1957
Hasui Kawase (Japanese, 1883 -1957) was an artist, one of modern Japan's most important and prolific printmakers. He was a prominent designer of the shin-hanga ("new prints") movement, whose artists depicted traditional subjects with a style influenced by Western art. Like many earlier ukiyo-e prints, Hasui's works were commonly landscapes, but displayed atmospheric effects and natural lighting.
Hasui designed approximately 620 prints over a career that spanned nearly forty years. Towards the end of his life the government recognized him as a Living National Treasure for his contribution to Japanese culture.
From youth Hasui dreamed of an art career. His maternal uncle was Kanagaki Robun (1829–94), a Japanese author and journalist, who produced the first manga magazine. Hasui went to the school of the painter Aoyagi Bokusen as a young man. He sketched from nature, copied the masters' woodblock prints, and studied brush painting with Araki Kanyu. His parents had him take on the family rope and thread wholesaling business, but its bankruptcy when he was 26 freed him to pursue art.
He approached Kiyokata Kaburagi to teach him, but Kaburagi instead encouraged him to study Western-style painting, which he did with Okada Saburōsuke for two years. Two years later he again applied as a student to Kaburagi, who this time accepted him. Kiyokata bestowed the name Hasui upon him, which can be translated as "water gushing from a spring", and derives from his elementary school combined with an ideogram of his family name.
Kawase studied ukiyo-e and Japanese style painting at the studio of Kiyokata Kaburagi. He mainly concentrated on making watercolors of actors, everyday life and landscapes, many of them published as illustrations in books and magazines in the last few years of the Meiji period and early Taishō period.
Kawase worked almost exclusively on landscape and townscape prints based on sketches and watercolors he made in Tokyo and during travels around Japan. However, his prints are not merely meishō (famous places) prints that are typical of earlier ukiyo-e masters such as Hiroshige and Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). Kawase's prints feature locales that are tranquil and obscure in urbanizing Japan.
Hasui Kawase's works are currently kept in several museums worldwide, including the British Museum, the Toledo Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Portland Art Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the University of Michigan Museum of Art, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Stanley Museum of Art, the Walters Art Museum, the Clark Art Institute, the Smart Museum of Art, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.(Biography provided by Robert Azensky Fine Art)
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Artist: Kawase Hasui
'Rain at Shinagawa, Ryoshimachi' — lifetime impression
By Kawase Hasui
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
A fine, atmospheric impression, with fresh colors; the full sheet, in excellent condition. Signed 'Hasui' with the artist’s seal 'Kawase', lower left. Published by Watanabe Shozaburo with the Watanabe 6mm round seal indicating a lifetime impression printed between 1945 - 1957. Archivally sleeved, unmatted.
Image size 14 1/4 x 9 3/8 inches (362 x 238 mm); sheet size 15 1/2 x 10 3/8 inches (391 x 264 mm).
An impression of this work is in the permanent collection of the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, Achenbach Foundation.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
“I do not paint subjective impressions. My work is based on reality...I can not falsify...(but) I can simplify…I make mental impressions of the light and color at the time of sketching. While coloring the sketch, I am already imagining the effects in a woodblock print.” — Kawase Hasui
Hasui Kawase (1883–1957) is the most celebrated Japanese print designer of the shin-hanga ('new prints') movement. His prints, produced under the guidance and discerning eye of his publisher, Watanabe Shozaburo, represent the modern legacy of the renowned 19th-century Ukiyo-e masters Hiroshige and Hokusai. Hasui was able to evoke the fleeting beauty of Japan during the interwar period as no other printmaker of his time could.
Hasui's work enjoyed huge popularity upon producing his first print in 1918. Watanabe recognized and developed the enormous potential of the American market, resulting in Hasui's prints achieving high prices at auctions in New York as early as the 1920s. After the Second World War, his prints became highly sought-after collectible works among the American occupying forces in Japan. Hasui designed more than 600 prints during the 40-year span of his artistic career, and in 1956, he was named a 'Living National Treasure' of Japan.
Hasui’s woodblock...
Category
1930s Showa Kawase Hasui Figurative Prints
Materials
Woodcut
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Kawase Hasui figurative prints for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic Kawase Hasui figurative prints available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Kawase Hasui in woodcut print and more. Not every interior allows for large Kawase Hasui figurative prints, so small editions measuring 10 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of and Taiso Yoshitoshi. Kawase Hasui figurative prints prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $1,900 and tops out at $1,900, while the average work can sell for $1,900.
Questions About Kawase Hasui Figurative Prints
- What did Hasui Kawase do?1 Answer1stDibs ExpertJune 30, 2023Hasui Kawase made woodblock prints and was one of the most important modern Japanese artists. The woodblock printmaking genre, unique to Japan, grew out of 17th-century developments in printing and book publishing. Kawase was a prominent practitioner of the shin-hanga (“new prints”) movement, whose artists depicted traditional subjects with a style influenced by Western art. Like many earlier artists working in woodblock printmaking, Hasui primarily created richly atmospheric landscapes. They’re characterized by an emphasis on natural lighting and the artist’s effort to draw attention to the beauty of nature. Hasui created hundreds of prints over a career that spanned nearly forty years. On 1stDibs, find a range of original Japanese woodblock prints.
- Where was Kawase Hasui born?1 Answer1stDibs ExpertFebruary 17, 2023Kawase Hasui was born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1883. He was one of modern Japan's most important and prolific printmakers and a prominent designer of the shin-hanga ("new prints") movement, whose artists depicted traditional subjects with a style influenced by Western art. Shop a range of Kawase Hasui art from some of the world's top galleries on 1stDibs.