Additional information
| Artist | Koitsu |
|---|---|
| Country | Japanese |
| Region | Asian |
ArtistKoitsu, Tsuchiya
Artist Years1870-1949
Artist NationalityJapanese
TitleNijubashi Bridge
Year1939
MediumPrint > Woodcut/Block Print
DimensionsSheet: 10.4 X 15.3 inches
Description
Polychrome woodblock print, printed on Japan kozo paper, date and title in the right margin, artist signature and red seal at lower right in the image. Fine condition. Free shipping to US address. (bx-117)
According to Ohmi Gallery:
Koitsu Raisonne print code TK-XX-1. This is a rare scene, printed only in 1939. This print contains no publisher seals, but is thought to have been published by Shobido Tanaka. It is one of a number of prints commissioned by the war-time Government in order to unite the Japanese people in their war-time effort. As such, it was thought inappropriate to include publisher information directly on the print. The Koitsu print Kashiwara Shrine is another example of a print of this type. Both prints were included in the 1939 promotional book Beautiful Nippon.
Accession Number721508
NotesBorn in 1870 near Hamamatsu City (Shizuoka Prefecture) with the name "Sahei"1, Koitsu moved to Tokyo at the age of fifteen. He had planned to apprentice with Matsuzaki, a carver for the artist Kobayashi Kiyochika, but instead, he became Kiyochika's apprentice and moved into his home to study art and print design. It is through Kiyochika that Koitsu gained his trademark skill in the subtle use of light and shadow for his landscape prints. Koitsu lived with Kiyochika for 19 years and was considered more a member of Kiyochika's family than an apprentice. He worked and studying with Kiyochika until around Meiji 36 (1903). In Taisho 11 (1922) he moved to his wife's place of birth in Chigasaki City and lived there until his death.
Although Koitsu first designed woodblock prints during the Sino-Japanese war (1894-1895), and later worked as a lithographer (around 1897 to 1905), he only really became a successful artist after his chance-meeting with Watanabe Shozaburo, the founder of the shin hanga print movement, at an exhibition of Kiyochika's works in 1931 that marked the anniversary of Kiyochika's death. In 1932 he started to produce landscape prints in the shin hanga style for Watanabe, the first being titled 'Cherry Blossom Viewing at Gion', and he went on to design a total of ten prints for Watanabe. He later designed prints for various publishers including Doi Sadaichi (known incorrectly in the West as Doi Teiichi), and a few prints for Kawaguchi, the Kyoto publisher Baba Nobuhiko, the publisher Tanaka Shobido, and the publisher Takemura.
Around the same time that Tsuchiya Koitsu began his shin hanga career, another artist by the name of Ishiwata Koitsu was also pursuing a career as a shin-hanga landscape artist. Despite sharing the same given name "Koitsu", the two men were not related. Their works are sometimes confused since both artists signed their works "Koitsu". However, the styles of their woodblock prints are quite distinctive, as are their seals. A reference article on seals found on Tsuchiya Koitsu prints can be found here, and other Koitsu research articles can be found in the 'Articles and Research' section of my Koitsu.com site
(source: Ohmi Gallery)
Price $1,200.00