Sosaku Hanga
From 1974 for about 10 years, I collected sosaku hanga prints by Yamamoto Ken, Oda Kazuma, Tobari Kogan, Onchi Koshiro, Yanaka Yasunori and others to send to England at the request of a British collector named Mr. H. At the time, I was also running the Gendai Hanga Center where we were publishing and distributing prints by artists like Sekine Nobuo, Sugai Kumi, Onosato Toshinobu, Ay-O, Motonaga Sadamasa, Isozaki Arata, and Andy Warhol. There was a single collector out in the suburbs for whom I collected sosaku hanga from the end of the Meiji to Taisho, to the early Showa period, by artists from famous to totally unknown. The total number of prints I collected (sold) was a shocking 7,000. Kubo Sadajiro taught that an art dealer
(collector) must touch (buy) things (artworks). "Wives and paintings
are something whose value you'll discover after living with them for
one month" - in other words, a painting cannot be understood through
only logic. From that point of view, the 7,000 works that I touched,
bought, and sold over 10 years are part of my flesh and blood. I'm
proud to say that have touched more prints than anybody else.
I have a habit of preferring unknown artists to famous ones, minor artists to major, and artists who have a strong central core. In terms of sosaku hanga, it has to be Tobari Kogan. But Kogan, a sculptor who died young, only produced a dozen or so woodblock prints in his lifetime. There was a time when I had all of Kogan's woodblock prints in my room including "Rain on the Senju Bridge" and "Tamanori" (now in the collection of the Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art). One day I'd like to write a proper note about it. Hirakawa Seizou and Suywa Kanenori, Nishida Takeo, and Kon Junzo and some of my favorite artists, but when talking about Sosaku Hanga, Takehisa Yumeji and Onchi Koshiro are absolutely exceptional figures, no matter what anyone says. In the history of Japanese modern art, what we call "the Sosaku Hanga movement" was the attitude and advocacy of modern printmaking led by Yamamoto Kanae and others based in the magazine "Hosun" at the end of the Meiji period. It was a movement that attempted to put into practice the assertion that "prints should not be reproductinos of pictures". The freshness of the movement in its early days, not only involving professionals but also many amateurs, and the energy of their printmaking that spread throughout the country was breathtaking. "Self drawn, self carved, self printed" was advocated to establish the originality of prints, and the phrase eventually became a slogan, and the words, originally nothing more than a methodology for achieving superior printmaking expression, ended up becoming a self-objective, trivializing the energy of the movement. Unfortunately, only a few artists, such as Onchi Koshiro, were able to escape the impasse that their creation had fallen into. Among the many artists who were bound by the theme of "self drawn, self carved, self printed", and who were so focused on the technique that their work degenerated into mere decorative objects, Takehisa Yumeji and Onchi Koshiro were the only exceptions. Nevertheless, I have regretted the cold attitude taken by researchers toward the nationally popular Takehisa Yumeji until very recently. I wonder if somebody will one day write a full fledged Yumeji Theory. Not only Onchi Koshiro, but Q Ei, the artist I most admire, was also greatly influenced by Yumeji.
 Exhibitions2021 Spring Mini Collection / Yoshida Hiroshi and Taisho Hanga (By appointment only) 3/10～3/19  2016 Koshiro ONCHI Exhibition 2/6～2/20 2013 Koshiro ONCHI Exhibition 6/25～7/6 2011 KLEE & KANDINSKY & Koshiro ONCHI 7/26～7/30 2008 Heinrich Vogeler and the artists of "Jugendstil" 4/4～4/19 2007 Koshiro ONCHI and The Printmakers of "Sosaku Hanga" 12/14～12/29 2003 Koshiro ONCHI Exhibition 1/10～1/25 1996 2nd Artists of Sosaku Hanga Exhibition 6/12～6/29 1995 1st Artists of Sosaku Hanga Exhibition 12/8～12/17日 |
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