Technique: nishikie Sosaku Hanga, color woodcut ( mm 395x270)
Publisher: Uchida
Engraver: Eiichi Kotozuka
Beautiful proof with excellent colours. With Kotozuka seal. Printed on Japan paper. In perfect condition, with excellent margins all around beyond the marginal line, bokashi shading perfectly executed. The small cut in the lower right corner is not a damage to the press, but a guideline known as kento, used to correctly align the wooden blocks used to apply each different color.
Eiichi Kotozuka (1906-1981) is a 20th century printmaker and painter. He was born in Osaka and attended the Kyoto Technical School of Painting. In 1938 he joined the Japan Print Association. In 1948 he joined Tomikichiro Tokuriki, Tobei Kamei and Tasaburo Takahashi in founding Koryokusha , through which they publish their Sōsaku-hanga style prints.
Sōsaku-hanga (創作版画, “creative prints”) is an artistic movement that arose in Japan at the beginning of the 20th century, mainly in the field of woodblock printing, which promotes the artist as the sole creator of a work and sees the print as an expression of the artistic intent of the author alone.
Contrary to traditional practice and the contemporary movement of Shin-hanga (“new prints”) which maintains and promotes the collaborative system in use in Japan, based on the professional contribution of different figures (designer, engraver, printer and publisher) in a sort of division of labor, the Sōsaku-hanga movement supports the principle that the artistic print must be completely created autonomously by the artist in all its phases, from the conception and design, to the engraving on the wooden board up to the inking of the matrix and the subsequent printing on paper or other support.