Masao Maeda: Beach at Bonin Islands (小笠原母島 Ogasawara Hahajima) (RESERVED)

Artist: Masao Maeda 前田政雄 (1904-1974)

Title: Beach at Bonin Islands (小笠原母島Ogasawara Hahajima)

Date: 1939 Series: 100 Views of New Japan 新日本百景 (Shin Nihon Hyakkei)

Three green outrigger canoes beached on cream-colored sand against crystalline waters give us an idea that this is an unusual “Japanese” island. This is Hahajima (Mother Island), the second-largest island within the Bonin/Ogasawara archipelago. The Ogasawara/Bonin Islands have a unique position in Japanese cultural history, as they were first settled by non-Asian, non-Japanese, and as such there was much cultural intermixing. The first permanent settlers arrived in 1830 on this island that is 1000 km south of Tokyo, and consisted of two Britons, two Americans, one Dane and about twenty Hawaiian Islanders. These settlers assumed that the British claim of territory to this archipelago of more than 30 subtropical and tropical islands were valid. Commodore Perry visited the islands with his Black Ships prior to his visit to Tokyo Bay, and in 1876 the islands became internationally accepted as Japanese territory. The islands were essential bilingual in Japanese and English until the 1930s and Japan’s increased nationalism of the period. During the Pacific war, most of the population were forced to evacuate to the mainland, and after the war Ogasawara was occupied by the US army. The island of Iwo Jima is located in these islands, and is the site of an infamously ferocious battle where thousands of lives were lost, one of the bloodiest battles in Marine Corps history. In 1946, many of the early inhabitants who were western were allowed to return to the islands. The Ogasawara Islands were officially returned to Japan in 1968. Today the Ogasawara Islands are administered by Tokyo, and can be visited by a 24-hour ferry ride. They are now a UNESCO Natural World Heritage site. The population of Hahajima is today only 450 persons, and it is a two-hour ferry ride from Chichijima (Father Island), the largest of the islands.

Images like this one in this series serve as a time capsule along a complex and fascinating historical timeline. Although other images of territories that were lost to Japan after the war exist in this series, this is a rather far-flung territory that Japan ended up keeping. Authorities at the time of publication no doubt encouraged the artists to depict places that were included in Japan’s stretched borders and occupied territories at the time.

Maeda was born in Hakodate, Hokkaido; he met Hiratsuka there in 1923. He trained as an oil painter, but learned woodblock print making and became a member of Onchi’s First Thursday Society (Ichimoku-kai), eventually turning exclusively to printmaking.

More than thirty sosaku-hanga print artists collaborated to create this series of prints, published between 1938-41, as regional conflicts eventually ignited into World War II. Only 39 were ever issued; the last 29 were edited by Maekawa Senpan. According to the Art Gallery of New South Wales website, publication of this series was stopped by the Japanese authorities during WWII who feared that the interior of Japan would become known to its enemies. This would not be surprising given the paranoia of wartime, but it is also probable that there were other factors, including limited supplies and artists conscripted into the war machine.

The series title is stamped on the right margin in red, and the name of the artist’s group “Nihon Hanga Kyokai” is stamped lower left. 

Condition: Excellent impression, color and condition. Never framed. The artist’s name has been written in pencil lower right margin, but it is not known if this was written by the artist himself.

Literature: See British Museum website for whole series, although many have no photographs. See Carnegie Museum of Art Collection. 

Dimensions: 25 x 33 cm  Sealed: Artist's seal, in red, lower right

SKU: SNH029