Teruhide Kato – Crossing Umbrellas

Original woodblock print, hand-signed by the artist. First published between 1990 and 2015. The current print was printed before 2015.

Teruhide Kato likened the umbrella’s in Gion, Kyoto to flowers, perhaps giving him the idea for the great composition of the current design where the umbrellas and alley are seen from above, as if looking to flowers on the ground.

There are variants of this design. The most common one has the umbrellas in red and black. The posthumous editions use these colors as well. The current version is much rarer.

Image size (excluding margins): 42.0 * 20.0 cm (16.5 * 7.9 in).

The print is in excellent condition. It is mounted in a passe-partout, but possible to remove it.

The pictures shown here are from the print itself.

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Teruhide Kato (1936-2015) was a modern Japanese woodblock artist. He attended the Kyoto Art College. After a successful career as a kimono designer, he became a woodblock artist. Here he used traditional themes in more abstract designs.

Nipponprints has a wide range of his prints. Many of these depict famous places in or around Kyoto. Examples are the 1,000 Torii at Kyoto’s Fushima Inari Shrine, Kinkaku-Ji, Kiyomizu-dera and Yasaka Shrine. Often these are combined with elements of nature, such as the full moon, bamboo, autumn leaves or cherry blossoms. In all, the innovative style of Teruhide Kato is unmistakable.

See an overview of Teruhide Kato's woodblock prints