<b>GRAND CANYON</b> / Hiroshi Yoshida1925$12,500</em>

Details

This design is part of a small body of work the artist produced celebrating the rugged beauty of the North American landscape. This design was conceived from a trip the artist took in the early 1920s, where Hiroshi Yoshida sketched and painted variations of this composition onsite in preparation for the production of this fantastic design.

The work features the more dramatic U.S.-facing side of the Grand Canyon (as opposed to the Navajo-controlled vista), with the growing shadows of the latter part of the day expanding at the composition's periphery. The aging day ushers the brighter and richer tones of twilight featuring red, orange, and purple across the rugged canyon surface. The entire composition has a strong atmospheric quality suggesting a slight mist. An avid naturalist with a penchant for mountain climbing, it is no surprise Yoshida made the trek across North America to memorialize some of the region's most beautiful and rugged vistas onto woodblock prints. This work is among the artist’s most celebrated designs from the series.

Connoisseur's Note

This impression is in an outstanding state of preservation with exceedingly sharp and vivid colors in pristine condition. This print features Yoshida’s red jizuri seal, as well as a brush signature, indicating it was produced under his strict supervision. As typical with red Jizuri sealed prints, this impression is executed with darker and richer pigments making it more desirable than its lighter printed counterparts.

This lifetime impression features the artist’s jizuri seal at the upper top left margin. The print also bears a pencil signature at the lower right margin. An artist with a fascination with light, Yoshida produced two main variations of this design. This impression is the more realistic scene with lighter colors and stronger mist-like atmospheric quality.