Itō Shinsui 伊東深水: Summer Resort: Lawn Tennis before an International Crowd (SOLD)

Artist: Itō Shinsui 伊東深水
Title: Daytime at a Summer Resort
Date: 1941

A diverse crowd has gathered to watch what looks like a doubles lawn tennis game. The crowd seems intentionally international and friendly, as there is most every skin tone and hair style one can think of. There even seems to be a viewer wearing a yarmulke at left. The timing of this print, 1941, is interesting. Perhaps Shinsui is trying to show the welcoming side of Japan to all nationalities at the time of its ruthless war in Asia. The setting is idyllic, with blooming flowers and sylvan green all around. One would never guess from this image that the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor on December 7 of the same year. Hishochi no hiru (Daytime at a Summer Resort), 1941, printed by Ono Gintaro, Watanabe mokuhan bijutsugaho kosaku seal, signed Shinsui ga. 

“The Women of Shin Hanga”, plate 41, page 182. Reigle Newland, Amy, and Hamanaka Shinji, The female image: 20th century prints of Japanese beauties, 2000, p. 66, pl. 61. Tadasu Watanabe, Ito Shinsui: All the Woodblock Prints, 1992, p. 94, no. 57.

SKU: SNI040