This virtual exhibition features prints by Japanese and Japanese American artists in the Westport Public Art Collections (WestPAC). They include ukiyo-e woodblock prints from the 18th-19th centuries, Japanese stencil prints from the 20th century, and lithographs, etchings, and silkscreens by contemporary artists of Japanese heritage working in the United States and Europe.
Produced in Japan since the 17th century, traditional ukiyo-e prints use multiple carved wooden blocks to transfer a design in ink and colors onto paper. Popular subjects include beautiful women and actors from the kabuki theater, such as those seen below by Keisai Eisen and Utagawa Kunimasa. The process of creating a woodblock print involves a designer, usually credited as the artist, and multiple craftspeople for each specialized task, all overseen by a publisher.
This diptych of two prints arranged into a vertical composition allows the artist, Keisai Eisen (1790-1848), to depict a woman posing in an elegant s-shaped curve. Her elaborate robe has a pattern of vines and gourds, along with cursive calligraphy, a playful nod to her activity of reading a note. Cherry blossoms appear on both her sash and headpiece. Eisen, the designer of this print, was known for his depictions of beautiful women, many of whom were courtesans working in the licensed pleasure quarters in the city of Edo (now Tokyo).
Click here to watch a video of the traditional woodblock printmaking process.
This print depicts a close-up view of an actor in the popular kabuki play Sugawara and the Secrets of Calligraphy. He wears a robe with a cherry blossom (sakura) pattern, befitting the name of the character, Sakuramaru.
Since actor prints often promoted specific theater productions, this design can be dated on the basis of a play staged in the 7th month of 1796 at the Miyako theater of Edo, when the actor Nakamura Noshio II played this role.
This print depicts the kabuki actors Bandô Shuka I as the character Kuzunoha (right) and Ichikawa Danjurô VIII as Abe no Yasuna (left), who appeared together in a production of this play in 1850. In the play, based on Japanese folklore, Abe no Yasuna is a nobleman who marries a fox disguised as a beautiful woman, Kuzunoha. Both actors in this print are male, since men usually played the female roles in kabuki theater.
The mid-20th century ushered in the sōsaku hanga (creative prints) movement, with the artist maintaining individual control over the entire process. In the prints shown below, Ueda Fujō moves almost entirely into abstraction, while Mori Yoshitoshi and Takahashi Hiromitsu reinterpret the forms and subject matter of kabuki using traditional stencil printing techniques.
Takahashi Hiromitsu (born 1959) depicts a kabuki actor in a dramatic pose, often struck and held during a moment of great emotional intensity in a play while audience members shout out words of praise for the actor’s performance. Unlike the actor prints above, Hiromitsu does not portray specific actors, but takes the characters and forms of kabuki as his subject. This character poses while sharpening a double-tipped arrowhead (yanone) in preparation for a revenge mission.
Click here for a video demonstrating Japanese stencil cutting and textile dyeing from the Cooper Hewitt Museum. A similar process is used in stencil prints.
Mori Yoshitoshi (1898-1992), a major figure in the Japanese folk-art movement, started as a textile-dyeing artist and became widely known for his kimono designs and stencil-dyed fabrics. In the 1950s he turned to making prints, hand-cutting paper stencils and using them to transfer the color and design onto each print. Mori frequently drew on kabuki theater for his subject matter; this print depicts two characters from the extremely popular play, Kanjinchō (The subscription list). The lower figure prepares to draw his sword, while the upper figure holds a scroll - the titular list.
Click here for a video showing and explaining the famous kabuki play, Kanjinchō
Ueda Fujō (1899-1979) was born in Kobe, Japan. He was part of the sōsaku hanga (creative prints) movement, which emphasized the artist’s individual expression and control over the printmaking process, in contrast to the collaborative process of traditional woodblock prints. Ueda studied with well-known leaders of the creative prints movement, including Kōshirō Onchi (1891-1955) and Munakata Shikō (1903-1975).
Prints from the mid- to late 20th century are a strength of the WestPAC collection, which includes several artists of Japanese heritage born or working in the United States and internationally. While acknowledging the influence of Japanese art forms in their work, Matsumi Kanemitsu, Masaaki Noda, and Kumi Sugai use Western printmaking techniques, and engage deeply with global modern and contemporary art movements like Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism, and Pop Art.
Kumi Sugai was born in 1919 to Malay parents in Kobe, Japan, and studied art in Osaka before moving to Paris in 1952. Although he experimented with traditional Japanese woodblock printing techniques, he is best known for his abstract paintings and prints with black forms influenced by typography and calligraphy. This print was made for the limited-edition Paroles Peintes II (Painted words) portfolio, which paired original compositions by poets with etchings by avant-garde visual artists.
Kumi Sugai (1919-1996), Untitled from Paroles Peintes II, 1965; etching and aquatint on Johannot wove paper. Westport Public Art Collections, no. 1514
Click here to watch "Surface Tensions: Modern Japanese Painting Finds New Life," a 45-minute video presentation from Harvard Art Museums about conserving and exhibiting a painting by Kumi Sugai.
Matsumi Kanemitsu (1922-1992) was a painter and printmaker associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement. His lithographs from the 1960s echo the bold colors and abstract forms of his paintings from the same period. Kanemitsu was born in Utah, but raised in Hiroshima, Japan, until the age of 16. After moving back to the United States, he enlisted in the Army and served for five years during World War II. He started painting while detained in internment camps along with other Japanese Americans, and later studied art in Paris and New York. A grant to work at the renowned Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles began his experiments in printmaking, and he settled in California.
To the Americans, he was Japanese. But to the Europeans and the Japanese, he was American. So he had that kind of dichotomy in him." - Nancy Uyemura, student and collaborator with Matsumi Kanemitsu
Click here to watch a 4-minute video about Kanemitsu, produced by the Japanese American National Museum.
Masaaki Noda was born in Japan in 1949 and moved to New York in 1979 to pursue his artistic career. His silkscreen prints are filled with dynamic, fluid forms in soft colors with blurred edges, resembling watercolor paintings.
Noda’s prolific work in metal sculpture since the 1980s grew out of paper sculptures created as studies for his paintings and prints, in which he also tries to evoke three-dimensional space.
Click here to visit Masaaki Noda's artist website to view more of his paintings, prints, and sculpture.
These prints in the WestPAC collection were assembled for a special exhibition at the Westport Center for Senior Activities (below) in May 2022. When not displayed together or used in learning gallery installations, individual prints hang throughout the hallways and offices of Westport's schools and municipal buildings, where they are enjoyed by students, staff, and residents alike.
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Credits:
All photos are from the Westport Public Art Collections. Copyright remains with the artist of each work, where applicable.