Art by Medium: Lithograph

A black and white, large-scale surreal mythical landscape of an ocean voyage, with a snake wrapped around a clock, a ship, Venus sculpture, greek urns, and snakes, printed in black o...

'1. Vanessa urticae 2. 3. Pyrameis cardui' Late 19th century colour lithograph of butterflies.

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...

Artist: Henri Matisse (after) Title: The Sheaf Portfolio: The Last Works of Henri Matisse Medium: Lithograph Year: 1958 Edition: 2000 Frame Size: 24 1/4" x 21 1/4" Sheet Size: 14" x ...

Circa 1890-1920. This Neoclassical, Judaic, Egyptian revival, Orientalist Mizrach sign, was produced in British Mandate Palestine by the chromolithograph process at the beginning of ...

Guillaume Corneille Portrait - 1982 Print - Lithograph on Arches Archival Paper 30'' x 22'' Edition: signed in pencil and marked 25/300 As a co-founder of the famed experimental art...

Jasper Johns Fool's House, 1972 10 color lithograph on Angoumois à la Main handmade paper on a single lithographic stone with an aluminum etching plate with deckled edges Pencil sign...

Josep Guinovart Untitled Composition from "Ediciones Poligrafa, Barcelona at Redfern Gallery, London" Original Color Lithograph Year: 1979 Edition: 100 Size: 10 x 7.325 inches (25.4...

'Picotees' Process print from Frederick William Hulme’s ‘Familiar Wild Flowers’, circa 1890. Hulme was known as a teacher and an amateur botanist. He was the Professor of Freehand ...

This limited edition print by Marc Chagall, titled La Chevauchée (The Horse Ride), was published by Pace Columbus for an exhibition held at the gallery in 1979. The print is signed i...

This exquisite lithograph after Kathe Kollwitz (1867–1945), titled Mutter mit Kind (Mother with Child), from the folio Kathe Kollwitz, Ten Lithographs, originates from the 1941 edition published by Henry C. Kleemann, New York, and Curt Valentin, New York; printed by Duenewald Printing Corporation, New York. The composition reflects Kollwitz’s profound engagement with themes of maternal protection, tenderness, and human vulnerability, rendered with stark emotional intensity and a powerful graphic economy that underscores her enduring social message. Executed as a lithograph on velin paper, this work measures 19 x 16 inches (48.26 x 40.64 cm), overall; 13 x 10.5 inches (33.02 x 26.67 cm), image. Unsigned and unnumbered as issued. Artwork Details: Artist: After Kathe Kollwitz (1867–1945) Title: Mutter mit Kind (Mother with Child), from Kathe Kollwitz, Ten Lithographs Medium: Lithograph on velin paper Dimensions: 19 x 16 inches (48.26 x 40.64 cm), overall; 13 x 10.5 inches (33.02 x 26.67 cm), image Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered as issued Date: 1941 Publisher: Henry C. Kleemann, New York, and Curt Valentin, New York Printer: Duenewald Printing Corporation, New York Condition: Well preserved, consistent with age and medium Provenance: From the folio Kathe Kollwitz, Ten Lithographs, 1941 About the Publication: Kathe Kollwitz, Ten Lithographs, published in New York in 1941 by Henry C. Kleemann in collaboration with Curt Valentin, represents an important early American presentation of Kollwitz’s graphic work at a time when her reputation was expanding internationally. Issued during the turbulence of the Second World War and following the suppression of her work in Germany under the Nazi regime, the folio played a crucial role in introducing her imagery to a broader audience outside Europe. The publication gathers a selection of her most powerful lithographic compositions, emphasizing her mastery of tonal contrast, expressive line, and psychological depth. Produced with careful attention to print quality by Duenewald Printing Corporation, the edition reflects the continued transmission of European modernist printmaking traditions into the American context, serving both as a document of artistic excellence and as a vehicle for the preservation and dissemination of Kollwitz’s humanistic vision. About the Artist: Kathe Kollwitz (1867–1945) was a German draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor whose profoundly moving imagery, exceptional technical mastery, and unwavering social conscience established her as one of the most important and influential artists of the twentieth century, widely recognized as a master of modern printmaking and one of the most powerful visual chroniclers of human suffering, war, and social injustice. Born in Konigsberg, East Prussia, into a progressive and intellectually engaged family, Kollwitz was encouraged from an early age to pursue art and developed a deep awareness of social inequality that would shape her entire career, studying in Berlin and Munich at a time when women were largely excluded from formal academies while mastering drawing and graphic techniques with extraordinary discipline. Her breakthrough came with the monumental graphic cycle A Weavers’ Revolt (1893–1897), followed by The Peasants’ War (1901–1908), works that combined complex narrative structure with extraordinary technical command in etching, aquatint, and lithography, establishing her reputation as one of Europe’s leading graphic artists. Throughout her career, Kollwitz remained committed to portraying the lives of workers, mothers, and victims of poverty and conflict with unflinching honesty, creating compositions defined by bold, sculptural line, dense shadow, and unparalleled psychological depth that conveyed grief, resilience, and dignity. Working during a period transformed by the radical innovations of Pablo Picasso, Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti, Salvador Dali, Joan Miro, Wassily Kandinsky, Marcel Duchamp, and Man Ray, Kollwitz maintained a resolutely figurative and human-centered approach, aligning more closely with German Expressionism and artists such as Ernst Barlach, Max Liebermann, and Edvard Munch, whose emotional intensity and symbolic treatment of the human figure profoundly shaped her artistic language. Her later work, particularly the woodcut cycle War (1922–1923), stands among the most powerful anti-war statements in the history of art, reflecting both personal tragedy, including the death of her son in World War I, and a universal condemnation of violence and loss. In addition to her prints, Kollwitz created deeply moving sculptures that extended her exploration of grief and maternal protection into three dimensions, reinforcing her status as a multidisciplinary artist of exceptional range. She achieved significant recognition during her lifetime, becoming the first woman elected to the Prussian Academy of Arts, though her work was later condemned by the Nazi regime as degenerate, leading to her forced resignation and the removal of her works from public collections, yet her reputation expanded internationally after World War II and she is now regarded as a central figure in modern art. Her influence has been profound and far-reaching, shaping later artists including Francis Bacon, Anselm Kiefer, Leon Golub, Kiki Smith, and numerous contemporary figurative and socially engaged artists who continue to explore themes of trauma, memory, and human vulnerability. Today her works are held in major museum collections worldwide, including the Kathe Kollwitz Museum in Berlin, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the British Museum in London, and the Art Institute of Chicago, and remain highly sought after by collectors for their emotional intensity and historical significance. The highest auction record for a work by Kathe Kollwitz is held by her sculpture Mutter mit totem Sohn (Mother with Dead Son), which achieved approximately 1.2 million EUR at auction, confirming her enduring importance. Kathe Kollwitz Mutter mit Kind 1941 lithograph German Expressionism social realism print.

Scarce and coveted 1960s Pop Art print: Robert Rauschenberg Test Stone #6 (Blue Cloud) from the Booster and 7 Studies Series (Foster, 45, G:33), 1967 Lithograph on domestic etching ...

This artwork titled "Spring Rain" 1981, Is a colors lithograph on Fabriano paper by noted Brazilian/Japanese artist Manabu Mabe, 1924-1997. It is hand signed, titled in Japanese and ...

Alphonse MUCHA (1860-1939) (after) The Arts : The Dance Lithograph Printed signature in the plate Numbered / 500 Published in "Edition d'Art Henri Piazza" Authenticated by the blind...

Medium: lithograph (after the original lithograph poster "Sur Quatre Murs -- On Four Walls" for the Maeght Gallery). During the late 1940's and throughout the 1950's, Georges Braque ...

David Hockney My Mother (Bridlington), 1988 Four Color Lithograph on T.H. Saunders Waterford 250 gram paper. Hand signed. Also accompanied by a separate signed Certificate of Authent...

This exquisite lithograph by Christo and Jeanne-Claude (1935–2020; 1935–2009), titled Facade de magasin orange, projet (Orange Storefront, Project), from the album Ediciones Poligraf...

This exquisite lithograph and pochoir by Lucio Fontana (1899–1968), titled Concetto Spaziale (Spatial Concept), from the album XXe siecle, Nouvelle serie, XXIe Annee, No. 12, Mai-Jui...

Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) Crowned T-Rex, 1997 Lithograph Printed signature in the plate On paper 76 x 56 cm (c. 29.9 x 22 in) Published by Galerie Enrico Navarra Authentica...

A group of 14 Blackfeet Indians prints created by the artist Winold Reiss. The Great Northern Railway printed and released these prints in c. 1940. This is for the entire group...

Artist: Marc Chagall Medium: Lithograph Title: Solomon Year: 1956 Portfolio: The Bible Lithographs 1956 Edition: 6500 Signed: No Reference: Cramer 25, Mourlot 126 Framed Size: 22 1/2...

Medium: lithograph (after the original Edouard Vuillard lithograph). Printed on Renage wove paper in 1948 by the atelier Mourlot and published in an edition of 2500. Size: 12 3/8 x 9...

Medium: original lithograph. Printed in 1956 for the second volume (1956-57) of the very rare Documenti d'Arte d'Oggi, published in Milan by Groupe Espace. Size: 12 1/2 x 8 1/2 inche...

This exquisite lithograph after Marc Chagall (1887–1985), titled Das Fest (The Celebration), from Homer, Die Odyssee (The Odyssey), originates from the 1989 German-language folio published by Daco-Verlag Gunter Blase, Stuttgart, and printed by Lichtdruck AG, Zurich, Dielsdorf, September 1989. This authorized edition, issued under the direction of Vava Chagall, presents one of Chagall’s most joyful and expressive interpretations of Homer’s epic. In Das Fest, Chagall transforms the revelry of ancient feasts into a luminous vision of human connection, music, and harmony, rendered with his signature lyricism and dreamlike color palette. Executed on 250 g/m² Butten Papierwerke Miliani AG, Fabriano paper, this lithograph measures 14.88 x 11.69 inches. Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. The edition exemplifies the exceptional quality and precision of Lichtdruck AG’s craftsmanship, reproducing the depth and richness of Chagall’s original lithographs with remarkable fidelity. Artwork Details: Artist: After Marc Chagall (1887–1985) Title: Das Fest (The Celebration), from Homer, Die Odyssee (The Odyssey), 1989 Medium: Lithograph on 250 g/m² Butten Papierwerke Miliani AG, Fabriano paper Dimensions: 14.88 x 11.69 inches Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued Date: 1989 Publisher: Daco-Verlag Gunter Blase, Stuttgart Printer: Lichtdruck AG, Zurich, Dielsdorf Condition: Well preserved, consistent with age and medium Provenance: From the folio Homer, Die Odyssee (The Odyssey), Daco-Verlag Gunter Blase, Stuttgart, 1989 Notes: Excerpted from the folio (translated from German), Imprint—The French edition, L'Odyssée, with the original lithographs by Marc Chagall was published in 1974/75 in a CCL-example edition by Fernand Mourlot, Paris. In 1989, with the authorization of Mrs. Vava Chagall, the German-language edition of the Odyssey in two volumes was published by Daco-Verlag Gunter Blase, Stuttgart. Volume I contains the songs I - XII with XX color plates, including IV on double pages and XIX gray printed reproductions in the text. Volume II contains the songs XIII - XXIV with XXIII color plates, including II on double pages and XX gray printed reproductions in the text. For the German text, the prose translation by Wolfgang Schadewaldt was chosen with the permission of Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Reinbek near Hamburg. Set design in the Berthold Garamond Antiqua by F+M Bauer...

This exquisite lithograph after Lucio Fontana (1899–1968), titled Concetto Spaziale (Spatial Concept), from the album San Lazzaro et ses Amis, Hommage au fondateur de la revue XXe si...

This is a lifetime edition - hand signed and numbered by Jean-Michel Basquiat himself in Basquiat's lifetime. Many younger collectors don't appreciate the difference between the num...

Artist: Raya Sorkine Title: "La Roue Qui Tourne" Title: Wedding in Venice Year: 1999 Print - Lithograph on Arches Archival Paper   39'' x 29.5'' Edition: signed in pencil and number...

An original hand-signed and numbered Dali lithograph entitled "Chevalier Surrealiste". A rare example that it accompanied with the original fo...

Untitled is a modern artwork realized by Wifredo Lam in 1970s. Mixed colored lithograph, realized after one of the Artist's paintings. Hand monogrammed in the right lower margin wi...

'Indian-Persian - Indo-Persian - Indisch-Persisch' Late 19th century interior design chromolithograph, from Racinet’s ‘L’Ornement Polychrome’, 1887. Published in Paris. Albert Raci...

This exquisite lithograph and pochoir after Georges Braque (1882–1963), titled Etude oiseaux (Study of Birds), from the album Georges Braque, Le Solitaire (The Solitary), originates ...

VENDEDORA, a limited edition lithograph by the renowned American-born Mexican sculptor and printmaker Elizabeth Catlett(b.1915–2012) depicts a sensitive black and white portrait of a...

This exquisite lithograph after Andrew Wyeth (1917–2009), titled Burning Off, originates from the distinguished 1962 folio The Four Seasons: Paintings and Drawings by Andrew Wyeth. Published and printed by Art in America Company, Inc., New York, the edition captures Wyeth’s poetic meditation on atmosphere and transformation. Burning Off depicts a summer morning’s sea fog gradually lifting from the landscape, revealing the tranquil geometry of field and horizon. Through restrained tonal contrasts and delicate textural nuance, Wyeth conveys both the mystery and stillness of the natural world in transition. Executed on velin paper, this lithograph measures 17 x 13 inches (43.2 x 33 cm). As issued, it is signed in the plate and unnumbered, representing the folio’s authentic format. The Four Seasons series was conceived by the editors of Art in America in collaboration with Andrew and Betsy Wyeth, who selected drawings from the artist’s studio and personal collection to embody the cyclical poetry of the seasons. Each image reflects Wyeth’s profound sensitivity to light, time, and emotion—his ability to evoke the spiritual essence of landscape through quiet realism. Artwork Details: Artist: After Andrew Wyeth (1917–2009) Title: Burning Off, from The Four Seasons, Paintings and Drawings by Andrew Wyeth, 1962 Medium: Lithograph on velin paper Dimensions: 17 x 13 inches (43.2 x 33 cm) Inscription: Signed in the plate and unnumbered, as issued Date: 1962 Publisher: Art in America Company, Inc., New York Printer: Art in America Company, Inc., New York Condition: Well preserved, consistent with age and medium Provenance: From the 1962 folio The Four Seasons, Paintings and Drawings by Andrew Wyeth, published and printed by Art in America Company, Inc., New York Notes: Excerpted from the 1962 folio: "In 1962 the editors of Art in America proposed to Wyeth a portfolio of images of his recent dry-brush drawings. The artist and his wife suggested the theme, 'The Four Seasons,' because of the essential role played in his work by the cycle of the seasons. The drawings were selected by Andrew and Betsy Wyeth from works in the house and studio at Chadds Ford, supplemented by some owned by friends. With a few exceptions they had never been exhibited or reproduced. The plates were made directly from the originals. In these drawings Wyeth's loving concentration on the object is fully revealed. But as always in his work, this concern with the tangible is balanced by sensibility to mood, to the emotion arising from the actual. They are pervaded with a sense of the season—the exact time of year, the hour of the day, the quality of the light. To the truth and subtlety with which he captures these intangible factors, these drawings owe their poignant poetry." About the Artist: Andrew Wyeth (1917–2009) was an American visual artist and one of the best-known painters of the mid-20th century. Although he considered himself an abstractionist, Wyeth’s work is characterized by a meticulous realism imbued with psychological depth and atmosphere. He often painted the landscapes and people surrounding his homes in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and Cushing, Maine, creating an intimate record of American rural life. The son of the celebrated illustrator N. C. Wyeth, Andrew trained under his father before developing his own deeply personal visual language inspired by Winslow Homer, Henry David Thoreau, and King Vidor. His wife, Betsy Wyeth, was both his muse and career manager, while his son Jamie Wyeth continued the family’s artistic legacy. Among Wyeth’s best-known works is Christina’s World (1948), housed in the Museum of Modern Art, New York—a quintessential image of 20th-century American art. His other notable series include The Helga Pictures and his window studies, each reflecting a profound meditation on solitude, memory, and perception. Wyeth was the first painter to receive both the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal, and was elected to the French Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1980. In 2022, Andrew Wyeth's painting Day Dream sold for USD 23.29 million at Christie’s New York, setting a world record for the artist. Andrew Wyeth lithograph...

This exquisite lithograph by Wifredo Lam (1902–1982), titled Sin titulo (Untitled), from the album Ediciones Poligrafa, Barcelona - Redfern Gallery, London, originates from the 1979 ...

Joan Miro (1893–1983) Maravillas con Variaciones Acrosticas en el Jardin de Miro, 1975 Medium: Lithograph in Colors on Arches Paper Edition: 24/75 Artwork Size: 23.25 x 29.5 in ...

Medium: original lithograph. This lithograph is from the rare 1952 "Improvisations" portfolio, published by the Artists Equity Association of New York on the occasion of the 1952 Spr...

Alekos FASSIANOS Thinker with a Watch (FIAC 1978), 1978 Original lithograph Printed signature in the plate On heavy paper 92 x 60 cm (c. 37 x 24 ...

This exquisite lithograph and pochoir by Marc Chagall (1887–1985), titled L'ecuyere au cheval rouge (The Horsewoman with the Red Horse), from the album XXe Siecle, Nouvelle serie No....

Georges de FEURE (1868 - 1943) Return,1897 Original lithograph Printed signature, as issued 1897/98 Printed on paper Vélin (wove) Size 40 x 31 cm (c. 16 x 12") INFORMATION : Publis...

This original lithograph poster was produced for the retrospective exhibition of Joan Miró's graphic work, held at the Pasadena Art Museum in California, U.S.A., in 1969. Published b...

Joan Miro Danse Barbare (from Artigas) Original Color Lithograph Year: 1963 Size: 14.5x10.5in Edition: 1,500 Portfolio: DLM 139-140 Publisher: Maeght Editeur, Paris 1963 Catalogue ...

When the world thinks about the famous Group of Seven, this is likely the kind of image they recall—the quiet majesty of the Canadian wilderness. This lithograph by one of its youngest members, Alfred Joseph Casson is one of many classic landscapes he painted of the north—mountains, lakes, bare trees in the foreground rendered in his favoured bright palette of autumn colours—red, yellow, orange, a touch of green, and deep blue lakes against a cloudy white sky. Casson was an avid canoeist and spent many hours camping and drawing in northern Ontario often alongside fellow members of the Group. “I had to develop my own style. I began to dig out places of my own...” A. J. Casson He moved on to two commercial art firms in Toronto where he worked as an assistant to the artist Franklin Carmichael, one of the founding members of the renowned Group of Seven, (A group of Canadian landscape painters that included Tom Thomson, Lawren Harris and A. Y. Jackson.). Carmichael encouraged him to sketch and paint on his own. Casson was invited to join the Group of Seven in the 1920’s with whom he painted for years. Following their demise, he formed the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour...

Medium: original lithograph. Printed in 1964 for the special edition of Derriere le Miroir (No. 144-145-146) devoted in homage to Georges Braque, and published in Paris by the Maeght...

Medium: lithograph (after the poster). Printed in Paris in 1950 by Mourlot Freres, this lithograph faithfully reproduces the original Toulouse-Lautrec poster in a smaller-size format...

This exquisite lithograph by Bernard Buffet (1928–1999), titled La piscine (The Swimming Pool), originates from the 1987 album Bernard Buffet, Lithographe II (Bernard Buffet, Lithogr...

This unique monotype cyanotype, rendered in rich blue tones, draws inspiration from mid-century modern shapes to explore themes of balance and duality. Abstract forms echo harmony an...

The Jacobite Tartan Chromolithograph. 1886. From 'The Tartans of the Clans of Scotland', by James Grant, 1886. 365mm by 265mm (sheet). Accompanied by a sheet of descriptive text.

This poster, part of a series by Andy Warhol for Chanel No. 5 features the sophisticated design of the bottle in the center of the image. Aiming for simplicity, the bottle is the foc...

Original vintage poster: The U.S. Marines Want You. This military vintage poster is archival linen-backed and in fine condition, ready to frame. There is no date, artist, or printer'...

Original Vintage 1933 French Automobile Poster – Roby Ranty Marot Art Deco Calendar Art Print Classic Car Advertisement. Archival linen backed in...

Part of the Divine Comedy collection. Paper dimensions: 65 x 50 cm; plate dimensions: 40 x 30 cm. Numbered in pencil and signed in the plate. 68/350 DALÍ, Salvador (Figueras, Geron...

English butterfly chromolithograph, circa 1900. Plate number top right. From an English series of illustrations of butterflies and moths. Butterflies / moths are numbered and there i...

Paper Size: 15 x 11 inches ( 38.1 x 27.94 cm ) Image Size: 15 x 11 inches ( 38.1 x 27.94 cm ) Framed: No Condition: A-: Near Mint, very light signs of handling Additional Details: C...

This exquisite lithograph after Henri Matisse (1869–1954), titled Nu Bleu VI (Blue Nude VI), from Dernieres Oeuvres de Matisse 1950-1954 (Last Works of Matisse 1950-1954), Verve: Rev...

This exquisite lithograph by Marc Chagall (1887–1985), titled Le Cavalier et l’oiseau (The Horseman and the Bird), from Contes de Boccace, peintures du manuscrit des ducs de Bourgogn...

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...

Medium: pochoir (after the painting). A soft and delicate impression, printed in Paris in 1948 and published in an edition of 1200 by Braun et Cie. Size: 6 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches (164 x ...

Heron Bihoreau - Black Crowned Night Heron French chromolithograph, published in 1931. Printed title lower right of sheet. Plate number top right. From a French series of illustrati...

Lucien Boucher’s iconic 1956 “Signes du Zodiaque” poster for Air France is a celestial masterpiece of mid-century travel design—where astrology, mythology, and aviation intersect in ...

Tableau, Japanese, limited edition lithograph, black, white, red, signed, number 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...