Art by Medium: Lithograph

MARC CHAGALL (1887-1985) "Day Break" lithograph in colours, 1983, on wove paper. Signed in pencil, Numbered 26/50 in pencil 21.5 x 17 Inches. LITERATURE: Mourlot 1014 CONDITION: Exce...

Figura e Palme is an artwork realized by Gaetano Tranchino in the 1970s.  Hand-signed and titled. Artist's proof. Good conditions!

Duchesse De Berry is an original print realized by Octave Tessaert (1800-1874), in the mid-19th century. Lithograph on paper. Good condition. 

This lithograph is perfect for adding a touch of abstract sophistication to various interior spaces. Its organic and fluid qualities make it suitable for living rooms, offices, or ga...

THE DOOR OF JUSTICE is an original, hand drawn, limited edition lithograph by the highly acclaimed African-American woman artist Elizabeth Catlett, master printmaker and sculptor bes...

A hand painted three dimensional, Reverspective print, inspired by Venice. Produced in 2024. This print comes housed in a bespoke perspex display case. A limited edition of 75. Hand...

Lithograph in colors on wove paper. Artist proof signed and numbered in pencil out of 10 by Robert Longo, published by Brooke Alexander from the Men in the Cities. Frank and Glen st...

Artist: Slonem, Hunt Title: Blue Celeste Bunnies Series: Bunnies Date: 2025 Medium: Lithograph on Paper Unframed Dimensions: 24" x 16" Framed Dimensions: 29" x 22" x 1.25" Sig...

Artist: Slonem, Hunt Title: White Bunnies I Series: Bunnies Date: 2017 Medium: Lithograph on Paper Unframed Dimensions: 24" x 16" Framed Dimensions: 29" x 22" x 1.25" Signatur...

FATHER & SON is a hand drawn, limited edition lithograph by the African American artist JONATHAN GREEN printed using hand lithography techniques on archival Arches paper, 100% acid free. FATHER & SON is a beautifully simple composition depicting a refreshing Lowcountry South Carolina landscape...

Lithograph in colors on vélin Exhibition Fine Art Cartridge paper. Paper Size: 12.75 x 9.75 inches. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Notes: From the folio, Hockney's ...

Jamie Wyeth Unsettled (hand signed and inscribed by Jamie Wyeth), 2024 Offset lithograph poster (signed and inscribed to Kevin in black marker) Boldly signed and inscribed "for Kevin" on the lower front. Accompanied by documentation of the event at Rizzoli's where Jamie Wyeth signed...

BIG OLIVES, LITTLE OLIVES is a hand drawn, pencil signed limited edition lithograph by the well known and loved British artist and humorist, Beryl Cook(1926-2008). Printed in 1986 using hand lithography techniques on archival Arches paper, 100% acid free. BIG OLIVES, LITTLE OLIVES presents a humorous piano bar scene depicting a lively group of night club patrons enjoying their cocktails as they enthusiastically sing along with the debonair piano player giving the viewer a true feeling of merriment in this quintessential Beryl Cook image. BIG OLIVES, LITTLE OLIVES is a warm, colorful interior scene printed in shades of golden brown, black, red, blue, lavender, purple, green, orange, pink, peach, gray, and beige. BIG OLIVES, LITTLE OLIVES is one of Beryl Cook's most loved images - the edition is SOLD OUT, this is a rare unsigned printers proof aside from the numbered edition from the master printers private collection, stamped legend on verso with provenance information. Print size - 27 x 27 inches, UNSIGNED Printers Proof, unframed, excellent condition Edition size - 300 plus proofs Year published - 1990, printed at JK Fine Art Editions Co. NYC Beryl Cook's unique artistic humor documented familiar social situations...

This series of cyanotype triptychs showcases the beauty of nature scenes, including stunning beaches and oceans, as well as the intricate textures of water, forests, and skies. These...

Hand signed. Edition of 130 copies (105/130).

BEYOND EARTHS BEAUTY is an original hand drawn lithograph(not a photo reproduction or digital print) by the American woman artist Eileen Seitz, printed using hand lithography techniques on archival Arches paper 100% acid free. BEYOND EARTHS BEAUTY depicts a lush, brightly colored island landscape bursting with colorful tropical plants...

This is an original exhibition poster featuring Alexander Calder’s whimsical work “La Grenouille et la Scie” (“The Frog and the Saw”), created for a retrospective held at the Pace/Co...

XIV Winter Olympics games is a vintage poster realized by the artist Yozo Hamaguchi, in occasion of the XIV Winter Olympics games in Sarajevo, in 1984.

Diane Burko Lily Pond at Giverny, 1990 Hand colored monoprint (lithograph with hand coloring) Hand signed and numbered 8/95 by the artist and bears publisher's stamp on the front 21 ...

SWEETGRASS CARRIERS is a hand drawn, limited edition lithograph(not a photo reproduction or digital print) by the renowned American artist JONATHAN...

Héliogravure on vélin paper. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Paper Size: 15.75 x 11.75 inches. Notes: From the folio, Diane Arbus, Electa Editrice Portfolios, 1979. ...

Lithograph in colors on vélin Exhibition Fine Art Cartridge paper. Paper Size: 12.75 x 9.75 inches. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Notes: From the folio, Hockney's ...

GARDEN ROMANCE by the artist James Denmark is an original hand drawn, limited edition lithograph(not a photo reproduction or digital print) printed on archival Somerset paper using traditional hand lithography techniques. GARDEN ROMANCE is one of Denmark's expressive, colorful collage compositions of everyday African American life - a lovely flower garden scene featuring a romantic black couple, the woman seated amid the blossoming plants wearing a green and yellow paisley print dress and head wrap; her standing male companion with flower in hand, dressed in blue denim jeans, and pastel color patchwork print shirt. Vivid coloration, watercolor patterns, and collage effect textures captivate the eye with visual variety in a striking palette of blues, greens, white, red, orange, magenta, touches of yellow, lavender and dark black - a fine example of the intricacies of hand lithography! Print size - 32 x 21.25 in., archival framing, double mat, excellent condition, pencil signed and numbered - Certificate of Authenticity provided 1 / 15 H.C. by James Denmark, publisher's chop embossed lower left corner Edition size - 250, plus proofs Year published - 1996 Printer - JK Fine Art Editions Co. NJ Publisher - Mojo Portfolio...

BRASS SECTION(Jamming at Minton's) is a limited edition color lithograph by the renowned African American artist Romare Bearden, printed on archival printmaking paper, 100% acid free, in an edition size of 175. Brass Section 1979 from Romare Bearden's colorful JAZZ series of musical imagery, is an abstract portrait that captures the LIVE brassy sounds and energy created by the a jazz horn trio portrayed with expressive fluid brushwork for the musician portrait outlines, complete with brass horns - namely trumpets and trombones thrusting forward toward the viewer. A harmonious complementary color palette consisting of gold ochre yellow, deep navy blue, yellow green, taupe gray, brown beige, hints of burgundy red with the white of the paper creating contrast. Superb and FRESH interpretation of live jazz music...

Six-colour lithograph on Rives BFK paper Edition of 35 Signed and numbered on the front Mint This artwork is sold framed Images of edition numbering are for illustrative purposes on...

Lithograph on vélin paper. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered. Good condition, with trifold, as issued. Notes: From Derrière le miroir, N° 162. Published by Aimé Maeght, Éditeur, P...

Abstract Composition  is a lithograph realized by Piero Sadun in the 1970s. The state of preservation of the artwork is good.

This striking triptych lithograph by French artist Jean Le Yaouanc appears in Derrière le Miroir No. 176, published in 1969. The work spans three ...

Lithograph on vélin paper. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered. Good condition. Notes: From Derrière le miroir, N° 162. Published by Aimé Maeght, Éditeur, Paris; printed by Éditions...

Henry Moore, Three sisters, 1981 Lithograph in colours on BFK Rives Wove Signed and Numbered 56.5 x 45 cm (Unframed) 59 x 49 cm (Framed) Edition 30 of 50 Lithograph in colours on B...

Lithograph realized in December 1955. Hand signed and VAEVO ( (=Vernieuwing van Opvoeding en Onderwijs beweging (Upbringing and Education Renewal Movement) lower left. This impress...

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) "Le colombe volant (à l'Arc-en-ciel), 1952" (Bloch 712; Mourlot 214) Lithograph in colors on Arches paper, with full margins sheet 550 x 760mm (29 7/8 x 21 ...

KEISHA M. is an original hand drawn, limited edition lithograph by the renowned African-American woman sculptor, printmaker and painter Elizabeth Catlett (191...

David Hockney, Dog 38 and Dog 43 (set of 2), 1995 The set of two original vintage exhibition posters from 1995 featuring Hockney's paintings of his beloved dachshunds, Stanley and B...

This original artwork by Antoni Tàpies is one of the 10 colored lithographs of the “Berlin Suite”. Tàpies realized this portfolio in 1974, each lithograph is on Arches wove paper. ...

Menton by Constantin 1960 vintage French TRAVEL POSTER By Terechkovitch Georges Terechkovitch (1908-1993) was a French artist of Russi...

Through The Ages by Toko Shinoda, black and white signed lithograph calligraphy 11/35 obituary published by CNN March 2021 Celebra...

SUMMER RUSH is an original limited edition lithograph from the Sacred Garden Series of works by the British artist David Leverett (1938-2020), printed using hand lithography techniqu...

FALLING STAR is a limited edition color lithograph printed using traditional hand lithography methods on archival printmaking paper, 100% acid free, by the renowned African American artist Romare Bearden. FALLING STAR presents a visual memory from Bearden's childhood in Mecklenburg County North Carolina expressed as a modern collage portrait depicting a black woman set in a nostalgic Southern domestic interior. FALLING STAR's main focus is a black woman standing on the right drinking from a blue and white teacup...

Artist: Alex Katz, American (1927 - ) Title: Night: William Dunas Dance 1 (Pamela) Year: 1983 Medium: Lithograph on Arches, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 100, 42 AP Size: 25...

Touched by the influence of Andy Warhol, champion of a young Jean-Michel Basquiat, Rene Ricard served as enfant terrible of the 1980s New York art scene. This red and black lithograp...

NEW DREAMS is an original limited edition lithograph by the Harlem Renaissance, social realist African-American artist ERNEST CRICHLOW (1914-2005). NEW DREAMS was printed from hand d...

Touched by the influence of Andy Warhol, champion of a young Jean-Michel Basquiat, Rene Ricard served as enfant terrible of the 1980s New York art scene. In this rainbow print, Ricar...

Supercomb created by Jean Michel Basquiat for his exhibition in Paris 1988. Ultra vibrant colors with many interesting details of images and text combined in Basquiat's easily recogn...

Will Barnet (American, 1911-2012), "Celebration", Lithograph in Colors on Paper, 2005, titled lower left, numbered edition "54/75" to center, signed in pencil lower right, unframed. ...

Satiricon is a colored lithograph, realized in 1970 by Leonor Fini, an Argentine-Italian painter who spent her artistic career in France and was associated with the Surrealist movement. Not signed nor numbered. In very good condition. From series "Satiricon de Petron". The artwork represents a portrait of a nude woman with her delicate beauty expressed perfectly through confident strokes by bright and harmonic colors. Leonor Fini (1907-1966) was an emblematic painter, illustrator, writer, scene painter and draftswoman; one of her favorite subjects was human bodies painted with hybrid shapes, as animals, plants or minerals. Her subjects are neither naked nor dressed, their body is crossed by nervous tissues, veins and blood vessels.

"Late Light" by Robert Burkert is a lithograph landscape by the master printmaker that depicts a clearing with autumn/winter trees in the subtle but vib...

BOPPING AT BIRDLAND(STOMP TIME) is a limited edition color lithograph printed using traditional hand lithography methods on archival Somerset printmaking paper, 100% acid free, in an edition size of 175 by the renowned African American artist Romare Bearden. A semi-abstract multicolor print in shades of red, yellow, blue, green, pink beige, white, gray and black - BOPPING AT BIRDLAND(STOMP TIME) is a lively jazz portrait...

5 Colour lithograph on Somerset Satin Tub Sized White 410gsm. 60 x 76 cm (23.6 x 29.9 in) Signed, dated and numbered by the artist Edition of 125 ‘Peace Be Still’ (2022) showcases S...

Flower is an original colored lithograph print, hand retouched realized by Tomaso Binga. On the back, the label of the certificate of authenticity by the...

LOUISIANA SERENADE is a limited edition color lithograph by the renowned African American artist Romare Bearden, printed on archival Somerset printmaking paper, 100% acid free, in an edition size of 175. LOUISIANA SERENADE, from Bearden's late 1970's colorful JAZZ series of musical imagery, captures a Southern evening depicting two male figures playing their guitars on the veranda while a seated woman sits listening beside a glowing glass chimney lamp. LOUISIANA SERENADE, printed in lush hues of green, red, yellow, purple, blue presents a free flowing watercolor-like abstract music portrait by the renowned American artist Romare Bearden. Print size - 24.5 x 33.75 inches, unframed, excellent condition, fresh colors, full bleed image, no margins, hand signed in pencil by Romare Bearden, printer's chop mark embossed on lower edge, print documentation provided Year Published - 1979 Edition size - 175, plus proofs About the artist- Romare Bearden (1911-1988) Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, Romare Bearden is one of America’s most esteemed African American contemporary artists. Bearden grew up in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City and attended New York University where he received a degree in mathematics. Following graduation, Bearden turned his attention to art, pursuing further studies with George Grosz at the Art Students League. The artist served in the United States Army from 1942 to 1945. After leaving the Army, Bearden used funds from the GI Bill to travel to Europe for six months to study art history and philosophy at the Sorbonne. During this trip, Bearden had the opportunity to meet Henri Matisse, Georges Braque and Joan Miro, all of who had a strong influence on his artwork. Bearden’s work on canvas and collages expressed the complexities of rural Black America. “My intention is to reveal through pictorial complexities of the life I know,” he said. He integrated scenes from his childhood in North Carolina and from New York City, including many rituals and social customs. Another theme throughout his work was music. Bearden grew up surrounded by musicians and loved jazz and blues. Romare Bearden’s artwork can be found in numerous permanent collections around the country including the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrospective exhibitions of Bearden’s art have been held by The Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte; the Museum of Modern Art; the Detroit Institute; and the Studio Museum in Harlem. As well, President Reagan...

This lithograph is ideal for adding a sophisticated and calming presence to various interior spaces. Its abstract and natural qualities make it suitable for living rooms, offices, or...

Fugue is an original hand drawn limited edition lithograph by the African American artist Hughie Lee-Smith printed using hand lithography techniques on archival Arches paper, 100% ac...

John Baldessari The Sprinters, 1982 Limited Edition Offset Lithograph on Parson's Diploma paper Signed in graphite pencil on the front. Accompanied by letter of authenticity from the publisher 36 x 24 inches Unframed Provenance: Acquired as part of the complete SIGNED 1984 Olympic Lithographic Print Portfolio Exhibition History: Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland, 2017 (different edition) Accompanied by a letter of authenticity from the publisher on Olympic Committee letterhead. This is one of 750 hand signed lithographic posters, published in 1982 to celebrate the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics...

PLAY by the American painter and printmaker Will Barnet (born May 25, 1911 - died Nov. 13, 2012) is an original hand drawn lithograph printed using hand lithography techniques on arc...

Alex Katz (b. 1927) Untitled, from the portfolio 'A Tremor in the Morning', 1986 Woodcut on wove paper Edition 32/45 Signed and numbered in pencil lower left Sheet: 20 x 19.75 inches...

Baie Des Anges after Marc Chagall 1962 Stone lithograph 39 2/5 × 26 in 100 × 66 cm

Les Fleures is an original colored lithograph on cream-colored paper print realized in 2010 by Martine Goeyens. The contemporary artwork, representing a wonderful still life of flow...

BROTHERS is an original hand drawn lithograph by the Argentine artist, Aldo Luongo. Printed in 1975 at Circle Gallery NYC using traditional hand lithography methods on archival Arche...

Fantasy, Japanese, limited edition lithograph, black, white, red, signed, titled Shinoda's works have been collected by public galleries and museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Brooklyn Museum and Metropolitan Museum (all in New York City), the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, the British Museum in London, the Art Institute of Chicago, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., the Singapore Art Museum, the National Museum of Singapore, the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, Netherlands, the Albright–Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, the Cincinnati Art Museum, and the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut. New York Times Obituary, March 3, 2021 by Margalit Fox, Alex Traub contributed reporting. Toko Shinoda, one of the foremost Japanese artists of the 20th century, whose work married the ancient serenity of calligraphy with the modernist urgency of Abstract Expressionism, died on Monday at a hospital in Tokyo. She was 107. Her death was announced by her gallerist in the United States. A painter and printmaker, Ms. Shinoda attained international renown at midcentury and remained sought after by major museums and galleries worldwide for more than five decades. Her work has been exhibited at, among other places, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; the British Museum; and the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo. Private collectors include the Japanese imperial family. Writing about a 1998 exhibition of Ms. Shinoda’s work at a London gallery, the British newspaper The Independent called it “elegant, minimal and very, very composed,” adding, “Her roots as a calligrapher are clear, as are her connections with American art of the 1950s, but she is quite obviously a major artist in her own right.” As a painter, Ms. Shinoda worked primarily in sumi ink, a solid form of ink, made from soot pressed into sticks, that has been used in Asia for centuries. Rubbed on a wet stone to release their pigment, the sticks yield a subtle ink that, because it is quickly imbibed by paper, is strikingly ephemeral. The sumi artist must make each brush stroke with all due deliberation, as the nature of the medium precludes the possibility of reworking even a single line. “The color of the ink which is produced by this method is a very delicate one,” Ms. Shinoda told The Business Times of Singapore in 2014. “It is thus necessary to finish one’s work very quickly. So the composition must be determined in my mind before I pick up the brush. Then, as they say, the painting just falls off the brush.” Ms. Shinoda painted almost entirely in gradations of black, with occasional sepias and filmy blues. The ink sticks she used had been made for the great sumi artists of the past, some as long as 500 years ago. Her line — fluid, elegant, impeccably placed — owed much to calligraphy. She had been rigorously trained in that discipline from the time she was a child, but she had begun to push against its confines when she was still very young. Deeply influenced by American Abstract Expressionists like Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Robert Motherwell, whose work she encountered when she lived in New York in the late 1950s, Ms. Shinoda shunned representation. “If I have a definite idea, why paint it?,” she asked in an interview with United Press International in 1980. “It’s already understood and accepted. A stand of bamboo is more beautiful than a painting could be. Mount Fuji is more striking than any possible imitation.” Spare and quietly powerful, making abundant use of white space, Ms. Shinoda’s paintings are done on traditional Chinese and Japanese papers, or on backgrounds of gold, silver or platinum leaf. Often asymmetrical, they can overlay a stark geometric shape with the barest calligraphic strokes. The combined effect appears to catch and hold something evanescent — “as elusive as the memory of a pleasant scent or the movement of wind,” as she said in a 1996 interview. Ms. Shinoda’s work also included lithographs; three-dimensional pieces of wood and other materials; and murals in public spaces, including a series made for the Zojoji Temple in Tokyo. The fifth of seven children of a prosperous family, Ms. Shinoda was born on March 28, 1913, in Dalian, in Manchuria, where her father, Raijiro, managed a tobacco plant. Her mother, Joko, was a homemaker. The family returned to Japan when she was a baby, settling in Gifu, midway between Kyoto and Tokyo. One of her father’s uncles, a sculptor and calligrapher, had been an official seal carver to the Meiji emperor. He conveyed his love of art and poetry to Toko’s father, who in turn passed it to Toko. “My upbringing was a very traditional one, with relatives living with my parents,” she said in the U.P.I. interview. “In a scholarly atmosphere, I grew up knowing I wanted to make these things, to be an artist.” She began studying calligraphy at 6, learning, hour by hour, impeccable mastery over line. But by the time she was a teenager, she had begun to seek an artistic outlet that she felt calligraphy, with its centuries-old conventions, could not afford. “I got tired of it and decided to try my own style,” Ms. Shinoda told Time magazine in 1983. “My father always scolded me for being naughty and departing from the traditional way, but I had to do it.” Moving to Tokyo as a young adult, Ms. Shinoda became celebrated throughout Japan as one of the country’s finest living calligraphers, at the time a signal honor for a woman. She had her first solo show in 1940, at a Tokyo gallery. During World War II, when she forsook the city for the countryside near Mount Fuji, she earned her living as a calligrapher, but by the mid-1940s she had started experimenting with abstraction. In 1954 she began to achieve renown outside Japan with her inclusion in an exhibition of Japanese calligraphy at MoMA. In 1956, she traveled to New York. At the time, unmarried Japanese women could obtain only three-month visas for travel abroad, but through zealous renewals, Ms. Shinoda managed to remain for two years. She met many of the titans of Abstract Expressionism there, and she became captivated by their work. “When I was in New York in the ’50s, I was often included in activities with those artists, people like Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Motherwell and so forth,” she said in a 1998 interview with The Business Times. “They were very generous people, and I was often invited to visit their studios, where we would share ideas and opinions on our work. It was a great experience being together with people who shared common feelings.” During this period, Ms. Shinoda’s work was sold in the United States by Betty Parsons, the New York dealer who represented Pollock, Rothko and many of their contemporaries. Returning to Japan, Ms. Shinoda began to fuse calligraphy and the Expressionist aesthetic in earnest. The result was, in the words of The Plain Dealer of Cleveland in 1997, “an art of elegant simplicity and high drama.” Among Ms. Shinoda’s many honors, she was depicted, in 2016, on a Japanese postage stamp. She is the only Japanese artist to be so honored during her lifetime. No immediate family members survive. When she was quite young and determined to pursue a life making art, Ms. Shinoda made the decision to forgo the path that seemed foreordained for women of her generation. “I never married and have no children,” she told The Japan Times in 2017. “And I suppose that it sounds strange to think that my paintings are in place of them — of course they are not the same thing at all. But I do say, when paintings that I have made years ago are brought back into my consciousness, it seems like an old friend, or even a part of me, has come back to see me.” Works of a Woman's Hand Toko Shinoda bases new abstractions on ancient calligraphy Down a winding side street in the Aoyama district, western Tokyo. into a chunky white apartment building, then up in an elevator small enough to make a handful of Western passengers friends or enemies for life. At the end of a hall on the fourth floor, to the right, stands a plain brown door. To be admitted is to go through the looking glass. Sayonara today. Hello (Konichiwa) yesterday and tomorrow. Toko Shinoda, 70, lives and works here. She can be, when she chooses, on e of Japans foremost calligraphers, master of an intricate manner of writing that traces its lines back some 3,000 years to ancient China. She is also an avant-garde artist of international renown, whose abstract paintings and lithographs rest in museums around the world. These diverse talents do not seem to belong in the same epoch. Yet they have somehow converged in this diminutive woman who appears in her tiny foyer, offering slippers and ritual bows of greeting. She looks like someone too proper to chip a teacup, never mind revolutionize an old and hallowed art form She wears a blue and white kimono of her own design. Its patterns, she explains, are from Edo, meaning the period of the Tokugawa shoguns, before her city was renamed Tokyo in 1868. Her black hair is pulled back from her face, which is virtually free of lines and wrinkles. except for the gold-rimmed spectacles perched low on her nose (this visionary is apparently nearsighted). Shinoda could have stepped directly from a 19th century Meji print. Her surroundings convey a similar sense of old aesthetics, a retreat in the midst of a modern, frenetic city. The noise of the heavy traffic on a nearby elevated highway sounds at this height like distant surf. delicate bamboo shades filter the daylight. The color arrangement is restful: low ceilings of exposed wood, off-white walls, pastel rugs of blue, green and gray. It all feels so quintessentially Japanese that Shinoda’s opening remarks come as a surprise. She points out (through a translator) that she was not born in Japan at all but in Darien, Manchuria. Her father had been posted there to manage a tobacco company under the aegis of the occupying Japanese forces, which seized the region from Russia in 1905. She says,”People born in foreign places are very free in their thinking, not restricted” But since her family went back to Japan in 1915, when she was two, she could hardly remember much about a liberated childhood? She answers,”I think that if my mother had remained in Japan, she would have been an ordinary Japanese housewife. Going to Manchuria, she was able to assert her own personality, and that left its mark on me.” Evidently so. She wears her obi low on the hips, masculine style. The Porcelain aloofness she displays in photographs shatters in person. Her speech is forceful, her expression animated and her laugh both throaty and infectious. The hand she brings to her mouth to cover her amusement (a traditional female gesture of modesty) does not stand a chance. Her father also made a strong impression on the fifth of his seven children:”He came from a very old family, and he was quite strict in some ways and quite liberal in others.” He owned one of the first three bicycles ever imported to Japan and tinkered with it constantly He also decided that his little daughter would undergo rigorous training in a procrustean antiquity. “I was forced to study from age six on to learn calligraphy,” Shinoda says, The young girl dutifully memorized and copied the accepted models. In one sense, her father had pushed her in a promising direction, one of the few professional fields in Japan open to females. Included among the ancient terms that had evolved around calligraphy was onnade, or woman's writing. Heresy lay ahead. By the time she was 15, she had already been through nine years of intensive discipline, “I got tired of it and decided to try my own style. My father always scolded me for being naughty and departing from the traditional way, but I had to do it.” She produces a brush and a piece of paper to demonstrate the nature of her rebellion. “This is kawa, the accepted calligraphic character for river,” she says, deftly sketching three short vertical strokes. “But I wanted to use more than three lines to show the force of the river.” Her brush flows across the white page, leaving a recognizable river behind, also flowing.” The simple kawa in the traditional language was not enough for me. I wanted to find a new symbol to express the word river.” Her conviction grew that ink could convey the ineffable, the feeling, "as she says, of wind blowing softly.” Another demonstration. She goes to the sliding wooden door of an anteroom and disappears in back of it; the only trace of her is a triangular swatch of the right sleeve of her kimono, which she has arranged for that purpose. A realization dawns. The task of this artist is to paint that three sided pattern so that the invisible woman attached to it will be manifest to all viewers. Gen, painted especially for TIME, shows Shinoda’s theory in practice. She calls the work “my conception of Japan in visual terms.” A dark swath at the left, punctuated by red, stands for history. In the center sits a Chinese character gen, which means in the present or actuality. A blank pattern at the right suggests an unknown future. Once out of school, Shinoda struck off on a path significantly at odds with her culture. She recognized marriage for what it could mean to her career (“a restriction”) and decided against it. There was a living to be earned by doing traditional calligraphy:she used her free time to paint her variations. In 1940 a Tokyo gallery exhibited her work. (Fourteen years would pass before she got a second show.)War came, and bad times for nearly everyone, including the aspiring artist , who retreated to a rural area near Mount Fuji and traded her kimonos for eggs. In 1954 Shinoda’s work was included in a group exhibit at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art. Two years later, she overcame bureaucratic obstacles to visit the U.S.. Unmarried Japanese women are allowed visas for only three months, patiently applying for two-month extensions, one at a time, Shinoda managed to travel the country for two years. She pulls out a scrapbook from this period. Leafing through it, she suddenly raises a hand and touches her cheek:”How young I looked!” An inspection is called for. The woman in the grainy, yellowing newspaper photograph could easily be the on e sitting in this room. Told this, she nods and smiles. No translation necessary. Her sojourn in the U.S. proved to be crucial in the recognition and development of Shinoda’s art. Celebrities such as actor Charles Laughton and John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet bought her paintings and spread the good word. She also saw the works of the abstract expressionists, then the rage of the New York City art world, and realized that these Western artists, coming out of an utterly different tradition, were struggling toward the same goal that had obsessed her. Once she was back home, her work slowly made her famous. Although Shinoda has used many materials (fabric, stainless steel, ceramics, cement), brush and ink remain her principal means of expression. She had said, “As long as I am devoted to the creation of new forms, I can draw even with muddy water.” Fortunately, she does not have to. She points with evident pride to her ink stone, a velvety black slab of rock, with an indented basin, that is roughly a foot across and two feet long. It is more than 300 years old. Every working morning, Shinoda pours about a third of a pint of water into it, then selects an ink stick from her extensive collection, some dating back to China’s Ming dynasty. Pressing stick against stone, she begins rubbing. Slowly, the dried ink dissolves in the water and becomes ready for the brush. So two batches of sumi (India ink) are exactly alike; something old, something new. She uses color sparingly. Her clear preference is black and all its gradations. “In some paintings, sumi expresses blue better than blue.” It is time to go downstairs to the living quarters. A niece, divorced and her daughter,10,stay here with Shinoda; the artist who felt forced to renounce family and domesticity at the outset of her career seems welcome to it now. Sake is offered, poured into small cedar boxes and happily accepted. Hold carefully. Drink from a corner. Ambrosial. And just right for the surroundings and the hostess. A conservative renegade; a liberal traditionalist; a woman steeped in the male-dominated conventions that she consistently opposed. Her trail blazing accomplishments are analogous to Picasso’s. When she says goodbye, she bows. --by Paul Gray...