<b>BALLOON</b> / Masahiro Shimizu1934<b>SOLD</b></em>

Details

Masahiro Shimizu presents us with a sharp angular slice of the raising modern city of Tokyo. Bold, thick lines compose the dense urban landscape while irregular shadows cast by moonlight further highlight the rigidity of the structures. Shimizu’s design is daring and expressive and barrows from the visual vernacular of social realism, which happened to be an underground art movement in Japan at the time of this design’s conception. The title of the work references the advertising balloons hovering overhead, which float freely despite their massive appearance.

Connoisseur's Note

A proponent of Sosaku Hanga, Shimizu conceived and produced this design entirely himself. The artist was closely associated with Ono Tadashige and Fujimaki Yoshio who shared his interest in social realism and futurism. Shimizu was fascinated by Tokyo's swift rise toward modernism and the vast majority of his oeuvre documents this transformation.