<b>PORTRAIT OF HAGIWARA SAKUTARO</b> / Koshiro Onchi1943<b>SOLD</b></em>

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Koshiro Onchi was one of the leading printmakers in 20th century Japan. He is credited with producing the first work of abstraction in printed form in 1915. Onchi was comfortable in both abstract and representational formats, making his prints stylistically varied. He is known for imbuing his work with an expressive quality that was thought-provoking and emotionally potent. In many cases, his most expressive work remains unrivaled today. With his charisma, Onchi tended to the flame of the sosaku hanga movement during the dark years leading to and during the war by encouraging artists to produce creative prints for art’s sake.

The portrait of Hagiwara Sakutaro is perhaps Onchi’s most celebrated representational work. It has become an icon of 20th-century Japanese prints and an emblem for the sosaku hanga movement. Hagiwara Sakutaro was a surrealist poet and friend of the artist. Onchi met Hagiwara while in art school and contributed images, along with his follow Tsukuhae colleagues—Tanaka Kiyokichi and Fujimori Shizuo—to the poet’s surrealist masterpiece, Howling at the Moon (1917). Hagiwara Sakutaro fell prey to his depression and alcoholism and died during the dark years of World War II in 1942. Onchi was so moved by the passing of his dear friend that he produced the portrait posthumously a year later.

The portrait of Hagiwara is a compelling and probing psychological study of a subject overcome by depression and angst. Perhaps it was Hagiwara’s poetic heart and its sensitivity to the darkness of the time that permitted his demise. Onchi, a poet himself, was quite sensitive to the trials of the period and his friend’s passing that he imbued the portrait with an emotional depth and power that is rarely seen in Japanese portraiture, let alone in the realm of printmaking.

As an advocate for self-directed printmaking, Onchi exploited the woodblock printing process by overprinting a complex array of colors and tonalities, causing the portrait to possess a complicated and profound sense of light and shadow, which greatly contributed to the probing phycological depth of the design. Onchi’s portrait was so successful that after the war, he had dozens of requests for the print. Not interested in producing more than a handful of any given print, Onchi asked his friend and follower, Sekino Jun’ichiro, to produce an edition of fifty impressions to quell the demand. After Onchi’s death, the appetite for this design climbed, and Hirai Koichi was hired to produce an additional fifty impressions as a memorial tribute to Onchi.

Connoisseur's Note

This highly sought-after design is an impression executed by the printer Hirai Koichi. The print was produced in 1955 after Onchi’s death with the original Onchi carved woodblocks. Hirai’s run was very well received, as the edition was sold out the year it was produced. This particular print is in excellent shape and a fine example of the design. The Hirai impression is an excellent opportunity to acquire one of Onchi’s most significant works, as well as one of the top designs in 20th-century Japanese printmaking, at an obtainable price.