Kinokunizaka in the Rainy Season (Early Edition) - Kasamatsu Shiro - Japanese Prints

Kasamatsu Shiro (1898-1981) – Kinokunizaka in the Rainy Season

Original woodblock print. The first edition of this design was published in 1938. The current print was printed circa 1938.

A beautiful rain scene by Kasamatsu Shiro. A woman and a child walk by, protecting themselves from the rain with umbrellas. Towering above them is an asymmetric, magnificent old tree, remotely echoing the shape and effect of the umbrellas.

The strength of the rain varies between different prints of this design, but seems particularly strong in the current impression, and neither the umbrellas nor the tree seem capable of stopping the torrential rain entirely.

Image size (excluding margins): 36.0 * 24.1 cm (14.2 * 9.5 in).

The print is in very good state. There are two pinholes in the left margin, most likely as published.

The pictures shown here are from the print itself.

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Kasamatsu Shiro (1898-1991) was a prolific and famous woodblock artist. When only aged thirteen he started as an apprentice. He could trace part of his artistic lineage back via Kaburagi and Yoshitoshi, connecting him to the great Ukiyo-e masters of the 19th century.

He created many prints in the Shin-Hanga style. Many of these depicted traditional themes like landscapes and temples, but within that Shiro displayed great diversity. His prints in the period of 1952-1960 in this style were very successful. This enabled him to experiment and he started working in the Sōsaku-Hanga (creative prints) movement as well, not only designing but also carving and printing himself.

See an overview of Kasamatsu Shiro's woodblock prints

Toshi Yoshida

Toshi Yoshida (1911-1995) was one of the most successful Japanese woodblock artists of the 20th century. A member of the famous Yoshida family, he was the father of Tsukasa Yoshida and son of Fujio and Hiroshi Yoshida. He started drawing as a child and could learn painting and woodblock printmaking from his parents. His sheer talent was already visible in his early works and, supported by the knowledge of his father, he already managed to deliver remarkable woodblock prints from a young age. Throughout his life he experimented with different art forms and produced many works. These include abstract designs, children's books, paintings and many woodblock prints. Themes are varied and encompass nature, landscapes, temples and daily life, as well as his specialty of animal prints.

Takeji Asano

Takeji Asano(1900-1999) combines several of the typical activities of 20th century woodblock artists. He was trained at art schools in Kyoto and started out with oil painting. He then transitioned to woodblock printing within the Sōsaku-hanga (creative prints) movement. As such, he created prints from start to finish, drawing, carving and printing them himself. In the 1950 he switched to the process used by the Shin-hanga (new prints) movement which adhered to the division of labor used by traditional ukiyo-e artists. For these prints he only drew and cooperated with carver, printer and publisher to achieve the final result. Later on he turned to a more individualistic and novel style and kept creating until the very last years of his long life.

Tsuchiya Koitsu

Tsuchiya Koitsu (1870-1949) was a Japanese woodblock print artist, active in the 1930s and 1940s. He is considered to be part of the second generation of the Shin hanga artists, with the Shin hanga movement already well under way when he started designing woodblock prints. His recognition has grown during the past decades, and nowadays his prints are often compared to those of the likes of Hiroshi Yoshida and Kawase Hasui. Tsuchiya Koitsu was born on August 28, 1870 under the name of Tsuchiya Sahei. His parents were farmers, but at age fifteen, he moved to Tokyo to become a trainee at a temple. Upon the recommendation of a priest he soon transferred to an engraving studio. Through connections of the studio he joined Kobayashi Kiyochika's residence as a pupil, and became strongly tied to the household of Kobayashi Kiyochika. Here he acquired the name "Koitsu", specialized in lithographs and published his first prints. This lineage is significant in many ways. Kobayashi Kiyochika was a very accomplished ukiyo-e artist and a fore-runner for the later Shin hanga movement, even if he was not a part of it himself. He emphasized the role of lights and shadows and mood in his prints and is said to have exerted an influence on artists such as Kawase Hasui. Indeed, the interplay between light and shadow became an important part of Shin hanga woodblock prints and through his teacher, Tsuchiya Koitsu was well prepared to join the movement. Another enabler for his later Shin hanga prints was unfortunately bad luck for Tsuchiya Koitsu, who experienced many personal hardships. Among these were health problems, which caused him to abandon his lithographic activities. To sustain himself, he made drawings for hanging scrolls for export to China. Unfortunately, little is known about his works in this area. Later, in 1931, publisher Watanabe Shozaburo, the driving force behind Shin hanga, held an exhibition commemorating the death of Kobayashi Kiyochika and was in contact with Tsuchiya Koitsu. Watanabe asked him to make a few designs for woodblock prints, which Watanabe ended up appraising highly. Having entered the Shin hanga movement, Tsuchiya Koitsu went on to work with a multitude of woodblock print publishers, as was common at the time. The most important of these for him was without a doubt publisher Doi Hangaten, for whom Koitsu designed most of his woodblock prints. The president of Doi Hangaten, Doi Sadaichi, was committed to publishing high-quality woodblock prints and worked with excellent carvers and printers. Tsuchiya Koitsu mainly designed landscape prints there, and his work truly embodied the Shin hanga movement, excelling in the depiction of light and shadow, use of colors, expression of mood, and quality of printing, often requiring many woodblock impressions. Because he joined the Shin hanga movement relatively late, Tsuchiya Koitsu missed important exhibitions in the United States in 1930 and 1936. With the advent of the war export stopped almost completely, resulting in Tsuchiya Koitsu being less known abroad than one might expect based on his body of work. In the last decades a rediscovery has taken place however, and Tsuchiya Koitsu is now considered as one of the foremost Shin hanga artists.

Kawase Hasui

Kawase Hasui (1883-1957) has become one of the most popular woodblock print artists of our time. Already recognized as a world-class artist during his lifetime, his designs have aged well and have continued to capture successive generations. An advantage for current woodblock print enthusiasts is that the woodblocks for some of Kawase Hasui's designs have survived to this day and continue to be printed occasionally. In this way, the nature of the woodblock print medium has enabled Kawase Hasui to even posthumously drive the creation of new art pieces well into the 21st century. With this, Kawase Hasui's prints can very broadly be divided into two categories: earlier and recent editions. Prices for both have been steadily rising, but unsurprisingly it is the early editions that command the highest prices. Some of these designs are from before the 1923 earthquake, and have not been printed since, due to the loss of their original woodblocks in the disaster. Others were designed and printed afterwards, both during the lifetime of Kawase Hasui and posthumously. Depending on the design, time of printing, quality of the impression, state of the woodblocks at the time, prevalence of surviving prints, their state, and many other factors, such prints have been breaking records at auctions in recent years. The second broad category consists of recent editions. Though more affordable, there are unavoidable limits to their availability. Kawase Hasui's designs are challenging to print, requiring a highly skilled printer, and even then it takes significant time to complete all impressions. Only three publishers that worked with Kawase Hasui are still successfully printing his works, and all three hold a high standard, preferring higher-quality prints in more limited quantities over increases in numbers. Recent editions might be considered more suitable for display or collection in larger numbers, and earlier, especially lifetime editions, could be considered too rare for prolonged display. At nipponprints.com we offer both categories of Kawase Hasui prints for sale. In case you have Kawase Hasui prints you wish to sell, we are also interested in hearing from you. For further reading and a good overview of Kawase Hasui prints, the go-to work is Kendall Brown and Amy Reigle's Kawase Hasui: The Complete Woodblock Prints, published by Hotei. For more concise but more affordable works, we recommend Kendall Brown's Water and Shadow: Kawase Hasui and Japanese Landscape Prints or Visions of Japan: Kawase Hasui's Masterpieces.

Kasamatsu Shiro>Kinokunizaka in the Rainy Season (Early Edition)

Kasamatsu Shiro

Related Artists

Toshi Yoshida

Takeji Asano

Tsuchiya Koitsu

Kawase Hasui

Kasamatsu Shiro>Kinokunizaka in the Rainy Season (Early Edition)

Kasamatsu Shiro

Related Artists

Toshi Yoshida

Takeji Asano

Tsuchiya Koitsu

Kawase Hasui