<b>RETURNING HOME IN RAIN </b> / Fritz Capelari1915<b>SOLD</b></em>

Details

The publisher Watanabe Shōzaburo started his enterprise reproducing well-known Ukiyo-e designs during the late Meiji period. Seeing an opportunity to produce original work and revitalize the art of woodblock prints, he first hired the Austrian artist Fritz Capelari. Capelari produced more than a dozen designs for Watanabe and is credited with being among the first Shin Hanga artists. Thus, his work created a blueprint for combining Western aesthetic concerns with Japanese motifs that influenced Watanabe and his future stable of artists.

This design is considered Capelari’s masterwork and among his most sought-after Watanabe published prints. This striking design has a semi-abstracted quality; its arrangement of circles and ovals makes up most of the composition. The printing effects from Watanabe’s most skilled printers give this impression texture and depth, particularly noticeable in the various kimono and segments of the umbrellas. The rainfall, captured in angular lines across the design, further punctuates the sense of poetics this quiet and contemplative work invokes.

Connoisseur's Note

Returning Home in the Rain is an exceedingly rare work. The great Kanto earthquake of 1923 destroyed the original Watanabe print shop and studio, including the printing blocks and unsold inventory for this design. Only impressions of this design sold before the earthquake and removed from Tokyo survived the earthquake and ensuing fires that consumed the city.