Takahashi Shōtei

Takahashi Shōtei
高橋松亭
Snow on Ayase river (1915), now in the collection of the Rijksmuseum[1]
Born
Hiroaki Takahashi

1871 (1871)
Tokyo, Japan
Died11 February 1945(1945-02-11) (aged 73–74)
Known for
  • woodblock prints
  • co-founder of the Japan Youth Painting Society

Takahashi Shōtei (高橋松亭), born Hiroaki (1871 – 11 February 1945) was a 20th-century Japanese woodblock artist in the shinsaku-hanga and later shin-hanga art movements.

Biography

Hiroaki Takahashi was born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1871.[2] As a young artist he was given the artistic name Shotei by his uncle, Matsumoto Fuko, under whose tutelage he was apprenticing.[2] He began this apprenticeship at the age of nine.[3] When he was 16 years old, he started a job with the Imperial Household Department of Foreign Affairs, where he copied the designs of foreign ceremonial objects.[2] As with many Japanese woodblock artists over his lifetime he signed his work with various names and worked for several publishing companies. After studying art, Shotei and Terazaki Kogyo founded the Japan Youth Painting Society in 1889. In 1907, as a successful artist, he was recruited by Watanabe Shōzaburō to contribute shinsaku-hanga (souvenir prints) in Japan.[4]

For this first commission, Watanabe asked Shōtei to produce a hanshitae, a preparatory drawing based on Hiroshige's prints, at a time when it was customary to use a finished painting as a print's model instead. The collaboration produced a series of ten landscape prints, which Watanabe exhibited in a friend's shop in the resort town of Karuizawa to gauge the response of foreign tourists.[5] In about 1921 Shotei added the artistic name of Hiroaki. He occasionally also used the name Kōmei.[6] In 1923 the Great Kanto earthquake (and subsequent fire) destroyed Watanabe's facilities; this included all woodblocks. Thus, Shotei recreated prior designs destroyed in the Great Kanto earthquake and produced new woodblocks in the shin-hanga style.

Before the earthquake, Shōtei had designed around five hundred prints for Watanabe, the blocks for which were destroyed in the fire; in the following years he continued working for Watanabe, producing around two hundred new designs, including greeting cards and small landscapes, and after 1925 he also created some larger shin-hanga-style prints, such as Fujikawa. In the 1930s he began working with other publishers, including Fusui Gabo and Shobisha, who allowed him greater creative freedom; his print Nekojarashi, for instance, was published by Fusui Gabo rather than Watanabe, likely because Watanabe, keen to keep his output distinct from the vulgarity associated with older nishiki-e, considered its nudity unsuitable for his clientele.[6]

Fusui Gabo also published Shōtei's Ama in 1931, depicting a female diver in a manner recalling Utamaro. Shōtei also produced several bijinga prints and landscapes centred on Mount Fuji.[7]

Shotei died of pneumonia on February 11, 1945.[2] There is a persistent rumor that he died in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima but this is incorrect.[2]

His works are held in the permanent collections of many museums worldwide, including the British Museum,[8] the Princeton University Art Museum,[9] the Museum of Fine Arts Boston,[10] the University of Michigan Museum of Art,[11] the National Museum of Asian Art,[12] the Los Angeles County Museum of Art,[13] the Arizona State University Art Museum,[14] the Brunnier Art Museum,[15] the Honolulu Museum of Art,[16] and the Saint Louis Art Museum.[17]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Snow on Ayase river, Takahashi Hiroaki, 1915 - Rijksmuseum". Rijksmuseum. Retrieved 2018-12-04.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "All About Takahashi Shōtei". Shotei.com. Retrieved 2019-02-07.
  3. ↑ Milone, Marco (2023). La xilografia giapponese moderno-contemporanea (in Italian). Edizioni Clandestine. p. 109. ISBN 9788865967461.
  4. ↑ Shimizu, Hisao The Publisher Watanabe Shozaburo and the Birth of Shin-Hanga p24
  5. ↑ Milone, Marco (2023). La xilografia giapponese moderno-contemporanea (in Italian). Edizioni Clandestine. p. 110. ISBN 9788865967461.
  6. 1 2 Milone, Marco (2023). La xilografia giapponese moderno-contemporanea (in Italian). Edizioni Clandestine. p. 111. ISBN 9788865967461.
  7. ↑ Milone, Marco (2023). La xilografia giapponese moderno-contemporanea (in Italian). Edizioni Clandestine. p. 112. ISBN 9788865967461.
  8. ↑ "print | British Museum". The British Museum. Retrieved 2021-02-03.
  9. ↑ "Moonlight at Ōhashi Bridge (2011-97)". artmuseum.princeton.edu. Retrieved 2021-02-03.
  10. ↑ "Mount Fuji from near Ômuro (Ômuro fukin)". collections.mfa.org. Retrieved 2021-02-03.
  11. ↑ "Exchange: Evening Scene in Tokyo: Woman with Umbrella on Bridge". exchange.umma.umich.edu. Retrieved 2021-02-03.
  12. ↑ "Evening Snow at Ikegami". Freer Gallery of Art & Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. Retrieved 2021-02-03.
  13. ↑ "Foot of Mount Ashitaka | LACMA Collections". collections.lacma.org. Retrieved 2021-02-03.
  14. ↑ Watanabe Shōzaburō; 渡辺 庄三郎 (1932), Night Rain at Asagaya, hdl:2286/R.I.36309, retrieved 2021-02-03
  15. ↑ "Iowa State Collections - Iowa State University". umsm003.its.iastate.edu. Retrieved 2021-02-03.
  16. ↑ "Bridge Scene in Winter | Honolulu Museum of Art". honolulumuseum.org. Retrieved 2021-02-03.
  17. ↑ "The Combined Fleet on Night Watch, from the Series "Picture Scroll of Distinguished Service"". Saint Louis Art Museum. Retrieved 2021-02-03.

Further reading

  • Shimizu, Hisao The Publisher Watanabe Shozaburo and the Birth of Shin-Hanga in Water and Shadow: Kawase Hasui and Japanese Landscape Prints edited by Kendall Brown, Hotei Publishing, 2014. ISBN 9789004284654
  • Shimizu, Hisao Syotei (Hiroaki) Takahashi: His Life and Works, Folk Museum of Ota City, Tokyo, 2005.
  • Smith, Lawrence. The Japanese Print Since 1900, Harper & Row Publishers Inc., New York 1983, ISBN 0064301303
  • Smith, Lawrence. Modern Japanese Prints 1912–1989. New York, London, Paris: Cross River Press, 1994.
  • Till, Barry. The New Print Movement in Japan. Pomegranate Communications, Reprint 2007, ISBN 978-0764940392
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