Oda Kazuma: Mount Fuji with Blooming Thistle Flowers (Sold)

Artist: Oda Kazuma 1882-1956
Title: Mount Fuji with Blooming Thistles, looking from from the Kogasaka Pass 

織田一麿作自画石版　日本名山画譜　　第一輯　第ニ図  Date: 1938

Oversized work displaying the artist’s mastery of color lithography. In the foreground are some bright and prominent Mount Fuji thistle (Cirsium purpuratum), which indeed grow in the environs of Mount Fuji, and are the largest of the Japanese thistle plants. This is an interesting rabbit’s eye view, rather than the usual bird’s eye viewpoint that we find in many views of Japan. Fuji-san seems also to almost be growing up from the ground in a parallel way to that all of the plants that are extending upwards. From a limited edition of twenty, with the artist’s handwritten notes verso. These read: （富士あざみの咲く　かご坂峠の景）View of Mt. Fuji, Looking from the Kagozaka Mountain Pass with Blooming Thistles (with a red seal)（織田一麿作自画石版　日本名山画譜　　第一輯　第ニ図）Picture Collection of Famous Mountains of Japan by Oda Kazuma own production of lithography, Second Picture of the First Volume.

Oda Kazuma studied lithography beginning in 1898, and a few years later he worked as a designer at the Koshiba lithography studio in Tokyo. At about that time he spent time with the European artist Emil Orlik, whose lithographic art inspired him. In 1918 Kazuma was a founding member of the Japan Creative Print Association (Nihon Sosaku-Hanga Kyoka) as its only lithographer. This self-printed work is from a set of about six, and is a scarce pre-earthquake design. Kazuma’s lithographs are included in many major American museum collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Smithsonian, The MFA Boston and the Los Angeles County Museum of art, to name a few. 

Condition: Excellent impression and color; very good condition. Some minor light yellow discolorations to paper.  Dimensions: 38.8 x 53 cm
Signed: Signed in pencil Kazuma Oda 1939, with a handwritten edition number 17/20
  

SKU: OKZ016