Earlier this year Fu Takenaka passed away. She had been ill for some time.
Fu Takenaka had started her career as a designer, working in fashion. In Japan, with its rich history of elaborately decorated Kimono fabrics, the distance between such a profession and art is minimal, or even non-existent, and Fu Takenaka transitioned to woodblock printing. She did so relatively late, in 2003, but she still managed to become very successful.
Her style stood on its own, without any woodblock artists having a similar or closely related style. Though generally colorful, her prints of temples often depicted part of the scene in black, gray and white. The results were calm and dreamlike sceneries. Next to temples, Fu Takenaka excelled in the depiction of owls. She made all these prints in the way of Sosaku-hanga artists, and thus designed, carved and printed them herself. At the end of 2020 her illness became apparent when printing further impressions of Kinkaku-ji Temple in Late Winter, as it was printed with less strength than before.
During her career Fu Takenaka cooperated with the ancient woodblock print publishing house Unsodo. Though Unsodo usually works in traditional ukiyo-e fashion, thus with a division of labor between artist, carver and printer, it very selectively cooperates with artists like Fu Takenaka. It is hoped that Unsodo might create new editions of Fu Takenaka’s designs.
Either with newer editions, or with the prints printed by herself, it is sure that Fu Takenaka’s prints will continue to be admired and bring beauty for many years to come.