Taninaka Yasunori: Okawabata on the Sumida River (RESERVED)

Artist: Taninaka Yasunori 谷中安規 (1897-1946)

Title: Okawa Bank Okawabata 大川端  Date: 1940 

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

Our view is Okawabata, a small public garden in Hama-cho in Tokyo that overlooks the Sumida River. It is evening, and we see an active water fountain and a key-shaped area, perhaps designed to evoke Japan’s famous ancient keyhole-shaped mounds (kofun). The lighting and coloration very skillfully give the feeling of either dusk or a brightly lit full moon, which has something of a disarming, quasi-reality effect. Could the white we see be snow, or is it reflecting white concrete? Part of the charm of this image are the figures shown in shadow on the path beyond the borders of the garden. To the left a woman pulls a two-wheeled cart, and to the right a larger figure wearing an apron seems to be vigorously negotiating with a small child who seems to be pulling away. The title of the print is written using negative space in the scroll-shaped entity at lower right, next to the artist’s name. This is number 33 in the series.

Smith 1994: “The original printed slip on translucent paper gives a rather unclear account, typical of the artist's fanciful imagination, of how he came to choose this scene. The bleakness of the scene is heightened by the use of just two colours - yellow and a cold blue - apart from the black key-block. He has also inserted the picture in a thick black line like a picture- or window-frame. The title of the print means simply 'By the Big River', an alternative name for the Sumida River. ”

Taninaka Yasunori was born in Nara prefecture, and following the death of his mother when he was only six, his father moved with him to Korea and opened a food store there. Taninaka returned to Tokyo in 1915 for some time, and received some education at a Buddhist middle school. He met Onchi Koshiro and other leaders of the Nihon Sosaku-hanga Kyokai in the late 1920s. He’s considered something of a bohemian as he was sometime unhoused, and his works often have a supernatural and fantasy element to them, and he later became associated with the Surrealists. There was a retrospective of this artist at the Machida City Museum of Graphic Arts in 2014.

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 sen” ("Selected by the Japanese Print Association") 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. Smith, Lawrence, 'Modern Japanese Prints 1912-1989: Woodblocks and Stencils', BMP, London, 1994, p. 36 and no. 19. Sekino, Jun'ichiro, ""Watashi ga hangaka meimeiroku", I - Taninaka Yasunori", 'Hanga geijutsu', 11, autumn 1975, pp.97-101. Merritt, Helen, and Yamada, Nanako, 'Guide to Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints 1900-1975', University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1992, p. 150. Merritt, Helen, 'Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints: The Early Years', University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1990, pp. 235-9. Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, 'Senkyuhyaku-sanju-nendai no hangakatachi (Taninaka Yasuo to Fujimaki Yoshio o chushin to shite)', exh. cat., 1987.

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

SKU: SNH016