Hasui 巴水: Evening Shower at Imai Bridge 今井橋 (First Edition) (RESERVED)

Artist: Kawase Hasui 巴水 (1883-1957)
Title: Evening Shower at Imai Bridge 今井橋 (First Edition)  Date: 1932

A woman crosses the sturdy wooden Imai Bridge, yellow umbrella braced against the diagonal rain. Her figure is mostly obstructed, but she provides a burst of color and a focal point for the design. The diagonal of her umbrella matches that of various bridge supports that lean to the left, and is a design counterpoint to the reeds that bend to the right both in the foreground and in the middle ground, as well as some of the opposing bridge supports. The vegetation is comprised of many shades of green, with a deeper green shown in the reeds buffeted by the wind in the foreground. The many layers of texture give this design a great deal of depth and interest, although done with great subtlety. From front to back, one sees the reeds in the foreground, the textured waves, then the bridge supports, then more vegetation, then the figure of the woman, and lastly the textured sky. Atop it all is the rain, done with great finesse in soft whites and greys. This is the finest example of this design that this dealer can remember seeing; it needs to be completely unfaded, as here, to truly appreciate the sensitivity of the artist and his collaborating team of artisans. We can also notice a connection to the famous Hiroshige design of Ohashi Bridge in the rain, although this is probably subconscious on Hasui’s part. Imai Bridge connects Edogawa City in Tokyo with Ichikawa City in Chiba Prefecture. Instead of this attractive wooden structure, today it is a charmless steel edifice meant for car traffic. Although there is considered a "dark" version and a "light" version of this design, this version would land somewhere in between and on its own, with a more blue-colored sky and fresh green colors. This in-between-ness is quite common with "dark" and "light" versions of Hasui's work, and in this dealer's experience, rarely are examples clearly binary. With the Watanabe seal "C" that was in use between 1930 and 1942.

Condition: Excellent impression, color and condition. Minor discoloration verso that does not show through to front  Dimensions: ôban (26.5 x 39 cm)
Publisher: Watanabe Shozaburo
Literature: Narazaki Muneshige, Kawase Hasui mokuhanga shu (Kawase Hasui, Collection of Woodblock Prints), 1979, no. 338. Kendall Brown, Kawase Hasui: The complete woodblock prints, Hotei Publishing, 2003, no. 284. See Chazen, Virginia Museum of Fine Art, National Museum of Asian Art, MIA collections.
Seal: Kawase  Signature: Hasui

SKU: HAS647