'Woman In Bagdad' — 1950s Japanese Sôsaku-hanga Signed Woodblock Print
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Toshi Yoshida, 'Woman In Bagdad', color woodblock print, 1954, edition not stated. Signed, dated, and titled, in pencil. A fine, richly-inked impression, with fresh colors, on cream-wove Japan paper; the full sheet with margins (1/2 to 7/8 inch); minor toning in the margins, otherwise in excellent condition. Self-carved, self-printed. Archivally sleeved, unmatted. Image size 14 13/16 x 9 7/8 inches; sheet size 16 1/4 x 11 inches (oban tate-e). Exhibited: 'Color in Relief: Wood Block Prints from Origins to Abstraction', Georgetown University Library, 2016. Literature: Oliver Statler, Modern Japanese Prints: An Art Reborn, 1959, pp.168-169; Eugene M. Skibbe, Yoshida Toshi 1911-1999: Diversity, Change, and Continuity in the Yoshida Art Tradition, Andon 53, Society for Japanese Arts, 1996, pp. 5-14; Kendall H. Brown, Yoshida Toshi: The Nature of Tranquility, in, A Japanese Legacy: Four Generations of Yoshida Family Artists, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 2002, pp. 72-80; p. 91, no. 55 Exhibition: Japan & Beyond: The Yoshida Family Legacy in Japanese Woodblock Prints, curated by Kendall Brown and Quyen Le, The Ruth and Sherman Lee Institute for Japanese Art, Hanford, CA. February 3, 2004 - March 27, 2004. Collections: Art Institute of Chicago, Clark Center for Japanese Art and Culture, Minneapolis Institute of Art, University of California Merced, University of Oregon (The Lavenberg Collection of Japanese Prints). ABOUT THE ARTIST Yoshida Toshi (1911-1995) began training at the age of 14 under his father, Yoshida Hiroshi, one of the most acclaimed artists of the Japanese 20th-century printmaking revival movement shin-hanga (’new prints’ created in the traditional collaborative system of Japanese printmaking). He studied from 1932 to 1935 at the Taiheiyo-Gakai (Pacific Painting Association), co-founded by his father. Before the Pacific War, Toshi traveled widely with his father in Asia, Europe, Egypt, and the United States. Later he continued his worldwide travels, especially in Mexico, the United States, Canada, and Africa. Following his father’s death in 1950, Toshi began his very personal exploration of abstraction, joining the sôsaku-hanga movement (’creative prints’ wherein the artist is creator, carver, and printer). During this richly creative period (1954 to 1973), Toshi created over three hundred nonobjective designs. In the early 1960s, Toshi returned to large-scale figurative work, concentrating on scenes of African wildlife in its natural habitat, and in 1984 he published the first of many illustrated children's books on African wildlife (Dobutsu Ehon Shirizu), which he continued to produce until the early 1990s. In 1966 he published a book with the artist Yuki Rei...
Abstract 1960s Abstract Prints
Woodcut
