<b>MT. RAINIER</b> / Hiroshi Yoshida1925<B>SOLD</B></em>

Details

Hiroshi Yoshida started his career as an oil and watercolor painter. He traveled to the US as early as 1899 and returned multiple times to exhibit his artwork as well as sightseeing. An avid outdoorsman and hiker, Yoshida took full advantage of his travels and painted the important natural treasures he visited—all executed in the field, utilizing the technique of plein-air painting. Yoshida’s six woodblock prints from his North American series were all conceived on one of his early travels and produced from oil or watercolor paintings done on-site which account for the strong realism in the designs, a quality rarely encountered in Japanese prints.

Mount Rainier is the highest mountain of the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest and the highest mountain in the U.S. state of Washington. It is a large active stratovolcano located 59 miles south-southeast of Seattle in the Mount Rainier National Park. It is the most topographically prominent mountain in the contiguous United States and the Cascade Volcanic Arc, with a summit elevation of 14,411 ft. With Yoshida’s interest in mountaineering, it’s no surprise we find this dramatic design among his North American prints.

Connoisseur's Note

This dramatic subject rendered in expressive and vivid colors with a quiet reflecting pool has everything one would want in a print. The composition is realistic—Mt. Rainier is depicted as you will find it if you see it on a hiking trail, but the style is Yoshida’s own blend of watercolor and oil painting translated into the language of woodblock prints. There is a robust market for prints with US designs extending beyond the confines of the Japanese print genre.

This impression is a rarely seen trial printing executed before the standard edition, bearing the large Jizuri seal at the upper left margin. This trial impression differentiates itself from other known impressions by its brighter coloration and bolder use of bokashi (color gradation), which create a stronger atmospheric quality throughout the print.

This trial print required several additional printing blocks, compared to the standard version, to produce a stronger intensity of colors and striking contrasting bokashi. This impression is a rare glimpse of the artist at work at the start of his printmaking career. At this time, Yoshida was deliberating on how to produce prints with the highest artistic quality while hammering out the economic viability of his production methods. The rarity and expressive quality of this early experimental impression are exceptional.

It is interesting to compare this work to the design Toshi Yoshida (the artist’s son) produced on the same subject, which is also included in this exhibition.