1990s Prints and Multiples

Keith Haring’s Untitled, 1984 depicts a heart with legs, animated in his signature vibrant style. This open edition reproduction captures the liv...

This rare authentic woodblock print made by the most prestige Woodblock print maker Suga Kayoko, published by Numabe Mokuhan, this edition is handled by Numabe Shinkichi or his son N...

“Nude with Blue Hair” by Roy Lichtenstein, from the Nudes series published by Tyler Graphics in 1994. A striking late-period work showcasing Lichtenstein’s signature Pop language — b...

This impressive large-format poster features Mark Rothko’s evocative painting Untitled (1962), capturing the essence of his signature abstract expressionist style. Published by Unive...

A classic British fish & chips van, on a classic English day Haddenham Steam Rally Country Fair, photograph by Richard Heeps. This artwork is a limited edition of 50 gloss photogra...

The Friend by Pablo Picasso in 1960, is a portrait that depicts the head of a man wearing glasses and a small hat. This work belongs to Picasso's later period, where he focused more ...

Offset lithograph from a portfolio of six prints published by the Museum of Modern Art, now out of print. Ed Ruscha’s Standard Station is among his most iconic images, encapsulating...

This is a reproduction of Quote by Robert Rauschenberg, from a rare exhibition poster in the Collection of European Masters series, published by Achenbach Editions for the Kunstsamml...

This high-quality reproduction of Brown and Orange on Slate faithfully captures Mark Rothko’s signature exploration of color, light, and emotion. Rothko’s artistic process was deeply...

This is an authentic Japanese woodblock print of Utagawa Hiroshige's "View of Tsukuda Island from Eitai Bridge" (Eitaibashi Tsukudajima). It was Woodblock hand printed in 1990s. It ...

Vintage blank postcard featuring Roy Lichtenstein’s White Brushstroke #1 from his iconic Brushstroke series. Published by VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn in 1992 and printed in Germany, this ear...

This rare exhibition poster, titled "Blue Umbrellas," commemorates the remarkable installation created by Christo and Jeanne-Claude in October 1991. The project featured 960 yellow u...

In The Road to York Through Sledmere, David Hockney transforms a familiar Yorkshire scene into something luminous and almost enchanted. The brilliant red brick of the buildings aroun...

This museum-quality reproduction of The 1001 Nights is based on Henri Matisse’s original cut-out composition created in 1951 in his room in Nice, during the artist’s celebrated late ...

Tracey Emin Every part of me's bleeding Offset lithograph poster, 1999 Published by: Lehmann Maupin Gallery, 39 Greene Street, SoHo, NYC Boldly signed and dated 2025 in silver sharpi...

This vibrant image of the Statue of Liberty is one of LichtensteinÕs most patriotic and iconic compositions, blending Pop ArtÕs bold comic-inspired style with American symbolism. Pub...

NEW GENERATION is a hand drawn, limited edition lithograph printed using hand lithography techniques on archival Arches paper, 10% acid free, by the renowned African American woman a...

From the Nudes promotional portfolio published by Tyler Graphics in 1994, this rare offset lithograph was issued as part of an informational set including a printed title sheet listi...

This reproduction of Andy Warhol's iconic Campbell's Soup Can exemplifies his pioneering exploration of consumer culture and pop art. Originally created by Warhol in the 1960s, this ...

KAWS VERY FIRST COMPANION - HISTORIC Uniquely Hand signed by the artist. (the regular edition was unsigned) KAWS Limited Edition 1st Companion (Hand Signed by KAWS), 1999 Painted Ca...

Currently framed in a light wood frame with a face profile width of .5 inch and side profile depth of 1 inches with plexiglass. The overall outside dimensions of the frame are 8.5 X...

John Baldessari's Paradise is a thought-provoking piece that plays with the concept of utopia and the viewer’s expectations of imagery. Known for his witty and conceptual approach, B...

Torso is an offset lithograph from a portfolio of five Andy Warhol prints published by te Neues, now out of print. This striking work reflects Warhol's ongoing fascination with the h...

Rare Limited Edition Serigraph of John Lennon's handwritten lyrics for the song "Little Flower Princess" first released on "Milk & Honey" in 1981 . It was written when Lennon wa...

This exquisite lithograph by Keith Haring (1958–1990), titled Untitled, from the album Against All Odds, 20 drawings - Oct. 3, 1989 (Against All Odds, 20 drawings - Oct. 3, 1989), originates from the 1990 edition published by Publishing House Bebert, Rotterdam, in collaboration with Mera Rubell, New York, and Donald Rubell, New York, and printed by Nieuwe Grafische, Rotterdam, Spring, 1990. Untitled embodies Haring’s signature visual vocabulary—dynamic lines, rhythmic energy, and universal symbolism—infused with the social urgency and optimism that defined his generation. Executed as a lithograph on velin acid-free Rivoli paper, this work measures 8.5 x 10.3 inches. Unsigned and unnumbered as issued. The edition exemplifies the refined craftsmanship of Nieuwe Grafische, Rotterdam, and the bold spirit of Bebert’s late twentieth-century artist collaborations. Artwork Details: Artist: Keith Haring (1958–1990) Title: Untitled, from the album Against All Odds, 20 drawings - Oct. 3, 1989 (Against All Odds, 20 drawings - Oct. 3, 1989) Medium: Lithograph on velin acid-free Rivoli paper Dimensions: 8.5 x 10.3 inches (21.59 x 26.16 cm) Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered as issued Date: 1990 Publisher: Publishing House Bebert, Rotterdam, in collaboration with Mera Rubell, New York, and Donald Rubell, New York Printer: Nieuwe Grafische, Rotterdam Condition: Well preserved, consistent with age and medium Provenance: From the album Against All Odds, 20 drawings - Oct. 3, 1989 (Against All Odds, 20 drawings - Oct. 3, 1989), Bebert, Rotterdam, 1990 Notes: Excerpted from the album, 20 drawings - Oct. 3, 1989 was published with the collaboration of Mera and Donald Rubell by Bebert Publishing House in Spring 1990. The edition consists of MMD hard cover examples, of which D are numbered (I/D - D/D) and signed by the artist. The edition was printed on acid-free Rivoli paper by Nieuwe Grafische in Rotterdam. and bound by Stokkink B.V. in Amsterdam. ©Keith Haring, M.Y.6. 1990. Mera + Don Rubell, NYC 1990. Bebert Publishing House. Westersingel 22-3014 GP, Rotterdam, Holland - 1990. About the Publication: Against All Odds is both an artist’s album and memorial publication comprising twenty lithographs created by Keith Haring on October 3, 1989, just months before his death in February 1990. Conceived in collaboration with Mera and Donald Rubell and published by Bebert Publishing House, Rotterdam, the album encapsulates Haring’s final creative statement. Haring’s accompanying handwritten foreword and brief text meditate on the fragility of human life, ecological collapse, and the artist’s struggle to preserve hope “against all odds.” The drawings—executed in Haring’s immediately recognizable graphic line—depict writhing figures, embryos, skeletons, animals, and cosmic symbols that echo his lifelong concern with birth, death, sexuality, and transcendence. Together, the images and text form a narrative of resistance and endurance amid personal illness and global crisis. The album’s title encapsulates Haring’s sense of perseverance: humanity’s and the planet’s fight for survival despite overwhelming forces of destruction. Published posthumously in spring 1990, Against All Odds stands as a poignant summation of his ethos—celebrating vitality and compassion in the face of mortality and despair. About the Artist: Keith Haring (1958–1990) was an American artist, activist, and cultural innovator whose bold visual language and socially engaged practice redefined contemporary art and the role of the artist in society. Born in Reading, Pennsylvania, and raised in Kutztown, Haring was inspired from an early age by comic art, calligraphy, and graphic design, influences that would later shape his instantly recognizable style of radiant lines, rhythmic movement, and universal symbols. After moving to New York City in 1978 to study at the School of Visual Arts, he immersed himself in the downtown art scene, drawing influence from modernist pioneers such as Pablo Picasso, Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti, Salvador Dali, Joan Miro, Wassily Kandinsky, Marcel Duchamp, and Man Ray, whose innovations in form, abstraction, and conceptual art informed his radical approach to public expression. Haring began creating chalk drawings in the New York subway system, transforming urban walls into democratic spaces for creativity and communication. His imagery—radiant babies, barking dogs, flying saucers, and dancing figures—spoke a universal visual language that combined accessibility with profound emotional and political resonance. He became a leading figure in 1980s New York, working alongside Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, and Kenny Scharf to bridge the worlds of street art, pop culture, and fine art. Influenced by Picasso’s expressive energy, Calder’s movement, Miro’s playfulness, and Duchamp’s conceptual wit, Haring developed an art of optimism, immediacy, and activism that addressed issues of love, unity, social justice, and human rights. His work carried urgent commentary on apartheid, AIDS awareness, drug abuse, and inequality, while radiating the joy and vitality of life. In 1986, he opened the Pop Shop, a groundbreaking experiment in making art accessible to all, selling affordable objects featuring his designs without compromising his artistic vision. His monumental public murals, including Crack Is Wack in Harlem and Tuttomondo in Pisa, Italy, continue to stand as symbols of art’s power to educate and inspire collective action. Haring’s dynamic compositions merged the energy of graffiti with the structural clarity of modernism, synthesizing the spiritual abstraction of Kandinsky, the surreal imagination of Dali, and the sensual immediacy of Man Ray. His work influenced generations of artists, including Banksy, Shepard Fairey, KAWS, Takashi Murakami, and RETNA, who continue to echo his fusion of activism and aesthetics. Despite his untimely death from AIDS at age 31, Haring’s impact on art and culture endures globally through the Keith Haring Foundation, which supports children’s programs and HIV/AIDS research. His works are housed in major museums such as the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Centre Pompidou, and the Tate Modern, affirming his legacy as a cornerstone of twentieth-century art. The highest auction record for Keith Haring was achieved with Untitled (1982), which sold for $6.5 million USD at Sotheby’s, New York, on May 16, 2017, solidifying his status as one of the most influential, beloved, and enduring artists of the modern era. Keith Haring Untitled Against All Odds 20 drawings Oct 3 1989 Bebert Publishing House Rotterdam 1990 lithograph...

In 1995, American sculptor Donald Lipski was commissioned to design the official poster for the French Open at Roland Garros. Known for his innovative installations and large-scale p...

Lithograph on paper. Hand signed and numbered in pencil. Image dimension cm 42,5x30. Edition of 499. Excellent condition.

Crying Girl is one of Roy Lichtenstein's most iconic works, epitomizing his mastery of Pop Art with its bold Ben-Day dots, comic book style, and emotionally charged subject. This ima...

Still Life with Flowers is a high-quality reproduction included in a 1994 portfolio published by Taschen and printed in Germany. This vibrant composition exemplifies Marc Chagall’s u...

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...

Guillaume Corneille (1922-2010) Cat and Bird at the Sunset, 1991 Original color lithograph Signed and dated in pencil Artist proof On vellum, 53 x 76 cm (c. 21 x 30 in) Very good ...

Agnes Martin Untitled #10, 1990 Lithograph on vellum transparency paper Unsigned Limited Edition of 2500 Publisher: Nemela & Lenzen GmbH, Monchengladback & Stedelijk Museum, ...

Title: Chanel Year: 1997 Medium: Offset lithograph on archival paper mounted on canvas Size: 30 x 21 inches Condition: Excellent Inscription: Signed in the plate Notes: This special ...

Medium: lithograph (after the gouache). Printed in 1992 by l'Imprimerie Karcher and published by Nouvelles Editions Seguier in an edition of 1000 for the Sol LeWitt "Black Gouaches" ...

This striking reproduction of Wassily Kandinsky's "Murnau" captures the vivid color palette, bold geometry, and dynamic composition that define the artist’s most celebrated expressio...

Portrait of Gene Autry, by Frank Romero This print was featured in “Dreamland”, the first solo exhibition of a Chicano artist at MOLAA (Museum of Latin American Art). This is the f...

Samella Sanders Lewis, 'The House of Shango', lithograph, 1992, edition 60. Signed, dated, titled, and numbered '31/60' in pencil. A superb, richly-inked impression, on Arches cream wove paper; the full sheet with margins (1 1/4 to 3 1/2 inches), in excellent condition. Image size 24 x 18 inches (610 x 457 mm); sheet size 30 inches x 22 1/4 inches (762 x 565 mm). Archivally matted to museum standards, unframed. ABOUT THIS WORK “The title of this piece is an unmistakable harkening to African roots. Shango is a religious practice with origins in Yoruba (Nigerian) belief, deifying a god of thunder by the same name. Shango has been adopted in the Caribbean, most notably in Trinidad and Tobago, a fact that underscores the importance of transnationalism to Samella Lewis’s piece. Her work often grapples with issues of race in the U.S., and The House of Shango is no exception. Through a reliance on the gradual transformation of Shango—one that took place across continents and time—Lewis’s piece forms a powerful link between black Americans and their African and Caribbean counterparts. The figure depicted in the piece appears to emerge, quite literally, from the house of Shango. Given the roots and transformative process of the religion, The House of Shango can draw attention to the historical intersections to which black American culture is indebted.” —Laura Woods, Scripps College, Ruth Chander Williamson Gallery, Collection Highlights, 2018 ABOUT THE ARTIST Samella Lewis’ lifelong career as an artist, art historian, critic, curator, collector, and advocate of African American art has helped empower generations of artists in the United States and worldwide, earning her the designation “the Godmother of African American art.” Born and raised in Jim Crow era New Orleans, Lewis began her art education at Dillard University in 1941, transferring to Hampton University in Virginia, where she earned her B. A. and master's degrees. She completed her master's and a doctorate in art history and cultural anthropology at Ohio State University in 1951, becoming the first female African American to earn a doctorate in fine art and art history. Lewis taught art at Morgan State University while completing her doctorate. She became the first Chair of the Fine Arts Department at Florida A&M University in 1953. That same year Lewis also became the first African American to convene the National Conference of African American artists held at Florida A&M University. She was a professor at the State University of New York, California State University, Long Beach, and at Scripps College in Claremont, California. Lewis co-founded, with Bernie Casey, the Contemporary Crafts Gallery in Los Angeles in 1970. In 1973, she served on the selection committee for the exhibition BLACKS: USA: 1973 held at the New York Cultural Center. Samella Lewis's 1969 catalog 'Black Artists on Art', featured accomplished black artists typically overlooked in mainstream art galleries. She said of the book, "I wanted to make a chronology of African American artists, and artists of African descent, to document our history. The historians weren't doing it. It was really about the movement." From the 1960s through the 1970s, her work, which included lithographs, linocuts, and serigraphs, reflected her concerns with the values of human dignity, democracy, and freedom of expression. Between 1969 and 70, Lewis and E.J. Montgomery were consultants for a groundbreaking exhibition at the Oakland Public L designed to create greater awareness of African American history and art. Lewis was the founder of the International Review of African American Art in 1975. In 1976, she founded the Museum of African-American Art with a group of artistic, academic, business, and community leaders in Los Angeles, California. Lewis, the museum’s senior curator, organized exhibitions and developed new ways of educating the public about African American art. She celebrated African American art as an 'art of experience’ inspired by the artists’ lives. And she espoused the concept of African American art as an 'art of tradition', urging museums to explore the African roots of African American art. In 1984, Lewis produced an extensive monograph on Elizabeth Catlett, her beloved mentor at Dillard University. Lewis has been collecting art since 1942, focusing primarily on the WPA era and work created during the Harlem Renaissance. Pieces from her collection were acquired by the Hampton University Museum in Virginia, the world’s earliest collection of African American fine art...

Sam FRANCIS Color explosion, 1992 Original lithograph Unsigned On Arches vellum 86.5 x 29.5 cm Numbered on the back Authenticated by Moulot blind stamp INFORMATION : Edited by Gale...

This exquisite lithograph by Jasper Johns (born 1930), titled Summer Green, State II, originates from the 1991 publication Jasper Johns, The Se...

Poster created for the exhibition The Lens of Impressionism, held at the Dallas Museum of Art in 1997. The image features a detail from Gustave Courbet’s A Bay with Cliffs, highlight...

Peter Blake V is for Valentine (from the Alphabet Series), 1991 Silkscreen in colors on wove paper 40 2/5 × 30 3/5 inches Hand signed, titled and numbered 49/95 on the front Published by Waddington Graphics and Corianda Studios from the Alphabet Series Unframed An exquisite print with romantic imagery in a sweet, romantic pastel pink. 'V for Valentine' is from Blake's 1991 series of alphabet letters. This tender and sentimental piece comprises a collection of antique valentine...

Offset Lithograph from a portfolio of six prints published by the Museum of Modern Art, but now out of print. Jasper Johns Map is one of his most celebrated and recognizable works, ...

Collage by Eduardo Chillida is a limited edition lithograph, expertly printed on Stonehenge Super White mat finish paper and published by ARTE in Paris in 1995. This print features a...

Rare Limited Edition Serigraph of John Lennon's handwritten lyrics for the song "Nowhere Man," first released on "Revolver" by the Beatles in 1965. This limited edition was releas...

Paper Size: 37.75 x 54.5 inches ( 95.885 x 138.43 cm ) Image Size: 27.5 x 54.5 inches ( 69.85 x 138.43 cm ) Framed: No?Condition: A-: Near Mint, very light signs of handling Shipping...

Five Lemons A Pear and Egg : Fruits and Flowers Suite 1994 Print - Screen Print Paper size 22.75'' x 21.75'' inches Image size 12" x 12" inches Edition: signed in pencil, titled, d...

This poster features Ken Keeley's photorealist depiction of the iconic Manhattan landmark, Paddy's Clam House. Known for his meticulous attention to detail and ability to capture the...

This vibrant “LOVE” poster by Yves Saint Laurent belongs to a joyful and highly recognizable series created by the couturier from the 1980s through the 1990s. Conceived not as a fash...

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...

This reproduction of the Magritte painting is the only authorized and approved copy in its current format. It has been sanctioned by the appropriate authorities managing Magritte’s e...

This enchanting reproduction titled Sunrise by Erté beautifully captures a moment of transformation and renewal, where a woman gracefully emerges from her cocoon, seemingly transform...

Date: 1990 Screenprint Poster, signed and dated in plate, numbered in pencil Edition of 1000 Image Size: 28 x 20 inches Size: 32 x 23 in. (81.28 x 58.42 cm) Commissioned by Playboy. ...

FIRST SUNDAY is a hand drawn, early limited edition lithograph by the South Carolina artist JONATHAN GREEN printed in 1993, using hand lithograph...

This reproduction, titled Canto XIV by Barnett Newman, was published by Art Edition in Düsseldorf, Germany. The print is of high quality and features Newman’s characteristic vertical...

Opening invitation for a Jasper Johns exhibit titled The Seasons, Prints and related Works held at Brooke Alexander gallery from November 9th, 1991 to January 4th, 1992. Signature an...

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...

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