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 Sosaku-hanga movement. As such, he created prints from start to finish, drawing, carving and printing them himself. In the 1950s 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 a 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.