<b>LUGANO</b> / Hiroshi Yoshida1925<b>SOLD</b></em>

Details

Hiroshi Yoshida started his career as an oil and watercolor painter. He traveled to Europe at the onset of his printmaking career to sightsee and to work. 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 plein air painting technique. Yoshida’s nine European series woodblock prints were all conceived on one of his early travels to the Continent and are based on oil or watercolor paintings done onsite, which account for the strong realism in the designs, a quality rarely encountered in Japanese prints.

The gleaming light of summer unfolds over the lakeside town of Lugano. The town’s rustic homes are clad in the vivid colors of summer, though shadows spring up like wildflowers as the strengthening sun begins its ascent. The view is expansive and the artist provides us with a glimpse of the clear lake that lay just out of arm’s reach. The design is picturesque and the work’s sensitive printing is executed with a softness that suggests a hovering humidity.

Connoisseur's Note

This impression is a rarely seen trial printing executed prior to the standard edition, bearing the shizuri (trial) seal at the upper left margin, just below the early large red jizuri seal. In addition to the jizuri seal, the print has brush and pencil signatures indicating it was produced under Yoshida’s strict supervision. The large red Jizuri seal along with the title at the left margin further suggests this print is one of the earliest printings of the design.

This early trial impression differentiates itself from other known impressions by its brighter coloration, particularly in the water, the buildings’ vivid rooftops, and the sharply contrasting colors observed through the prism of Yoshida’s masterful use of light and shadow. This printing also has a strong atmospheric quality suggesting humidity, which is much less pronounced on the standard version.

Unlike the standard version, this trial print required the use of several additional printing blocks to produce the intensity of colors and striking contrasting bokashi, or color gradation, evident throughout the work. This impression is a rare glimpse at the artist at work at the start of his printmaking career when Yoshida was deliberating on how to best produce prints with the highest artistic quality as well as hammering out the economic viability of his production methods. The rarity and expressive quality of this early experimental impression are exceptional.