Kenji Kusaka

Unknown Title (written in Japanese)

1974

Impression B Color woodcut, 1959 Signed and dated lower right (see photo) Titled lower left (see photo) A trial proof, prior to the edition of 100, signed and numbered Condition: Excellent Image size: 14 1/2 x 9 3/4 inches Provenance: Estate of the artist by decent to his heirs "Printmaker and painter Toshi Yoshida was born on July 25, 1911, into the respected Yoshida family of artists of Tokyo, Japan. Father Hiroshi was a celebrated landscape painter and printmaker, and mother Fujio established herself as the first female Yoshida artist as well as an Abstract artist later in her career. Younger brother Hodaka was an Abstract printmaker whose style, completely separate from his family's historic traditional bent, later influenced Toshi. Hodaka's wife Chizuko would become a pioneering female Japanese artist whose own exploration of Surrealism and Abstraction challenged the status quo. Toshi, however, as the eldest sibling, was expected to follow in his father's footsteps, and from an early age he was trained by Hiroshi in his studio. Unable to attend formal schooling due to the polio-induced paralyzation of his leg, Toshi would instead help with his family's printmaking studio and go on sketching trips with Hiroshi. As he got older, these trips would include India and Southeast Asia, working from morning to night taking night trains to get from one destination to another. Among Toshi's favorite subjects were the animals he discovered along the way. However, these trips ended as Japan entered military dictatorship in the mid 1930s, and artists whose work showed signs of Western influence were barred from exhibiting. At this time, Toshi left Japan for China and Korea, where he would remain for the duration of the war. He stuck to patriotic themes to remain in business, and after the end of World War II, as Japan struggled to recover from wartime economic depression, he earned his living creating traditional Japanese woodcut landscapes...

Keshin (Incarnation (Moku) Color woodcut, 1958 Signed and dated lower left in pencil (see photo) An impression is in the collectionof the Asian Art Museum, No. 2012.93, which is not a richly inked s this impression. Another impression is in the National Museum of Art, Smithsonian, accession no. S2019.3.1297 A third impression is in the collectionof the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria This appears to be the best and most colorful impression of the museum holdings. The image is thought to depict a flying crame Condition: Wrinkles to large sheet of handmade paper. Not objectionable. Image size: 29 15/16 x 21 1/4 inches Sheet size: 37 3/8 x 27 1/4 inches Reference: Tadashi Nakiyama Life & Work, Plate F Tadashi Nakayama - Sosaku hanga artist Tadashi Nakayama initially studied oil painting at Tama Art College, but began creating woodblock prints in 1951. In the 1960s, he traveled to Turkey, Greece, England, and Italy, absorbing influences from Persian and Byzantine art and the renaissance master Paolo Ucello. Throughout his long career, his subjects have included flowers, butterflies, women, and perhaps most famously, horses...

Festival No. 6 Color woodblock, 2002 Signed, titled and numbered in pencil (see photos) Edition: 50 (10/50), see photo Provenance: Ninion and Sheldon Landy Collection, Donors to Art Inst. of Chicago Hamanishi Exhibition, Oct. 12, 2013-January 5, 2014 Reference: Hamanishi Small 98 Condition: Excellent Sheet: 12 1/4 x 9 1/8"; Image 10 1/2 x 7 1/2" Katsunori Hamanishi Born: 1949, Hokkaido Medium: Mezzotint, with relief printing and metallic foil. Also a few woodblocks Hamanishi studied painting and graduated from Tokai University with a degree in Art, in 1973. Since then, he has been living in the Tokyo area, where his primary focus is printmaking. Mezzotint is a variation of intaglio printing--an exacting and laborious process whereby ink is transferred from below the surface of the plate by use of a press. First, the entire copper plate is indented with a toothed steel rocker...

Poem 71-25 (Me) Color woodcut with cement mold embossing, 1971 Signed, titled and numbered in pencil (see photos) Edition 100 (55/100) (see photo) Signed with the artist's stamp lowe...

This work is immediately recognizable as the work of Haku Maki (1924-2000). It is one of his well-known abstract compositions. The print is in very good condition, with no flaws noted on the surface. There is some very, very light toning in the margins, barely visible only under bright light. Maki Haku (巻白, 1924–2000) is the artistic name of Maejima Tadaaki, who was born in Ibaraki Prefecture. He was a sōsaku-hanga artist in 20th Century Japan. During World War II, Maejima Tadaaki was trained as a kamikaze pilot in the Japanese air force, but the war ended before he was assigned a mission. Haku had no formal art training, but studied for two years with the sōsaku-hanga artist Onchi Kōshirō...

An original Mid Century woodblock print titled "Reflections and Images" by American artist Toma Yovanovich. Hand signed in pencil...

This Japanese woodblock print is by the noted sosaku hanga artist Hiroyuki Tajima (1911-1984). It measures 24 x 18 inches, (25 x 19.5 inches the sheet, 33.25 x 26.25 inches framed). ...

Solidly grounded in Abstract Expressionist tradition, process-oriented painter Thomas Nozkowski’s method is predicated on relinquishing the idea of an end result. To highlight this, ...