<b>JONAH AND THE WHALE</b> / Sadao Watanabe1965<b>SOLD</b></em>

Details

Sadao Watanabe dedicated his entire career to producing prints illustrating the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. Though the subjects of his prints may be familiar, Watanabe utilized his unique talent of stencil production mixed with Japanese aesthetic sensibilities to create a new and compelling vision of these time-honored stories.

 In this design, Watanabe provides the viewer with the story of Jonah and the Whale. The artist, being a reborn Christian in a country where Christianity was a small minority, had to select a story and provide an illustration that contained the entire meaningful portion of the narrative—no small feat for any story but especially daunting given the significance of the stories found in the Bible. In this design, you’ll see a group of seven fishermen on a boat, fighting rather sizable waves. In the lower portion of the design, we have one male figure descending into the depths of the sea while two whales look on. The design is striking in its use of bold and stylized ornamentation, particularly evident in the giant waves and the ocean current. Watanabe provides an interesting twist in the design, as the whales below look more like giant Japanese carp than the imposing whale that swallowed Jonah for three days.

Connoisseur's Note

This design is one of Watanabe’s most successful large-scale stencil prints. This particular impression is made even more desirable by its pristine condition and vivid colors—a testament to its years of archival storage. It’s quite rare to find large-scale work that has never been framed or displayed and has been spared the transgressions of improper framing and fading caused by years of exposure to sunlight. This print is as fresh as the day it was printed.