<b>PORTRAITS IN GREEN</b> / Hodaka Yoshida1953<b>SOLD</b></em>

Details

Hodaka Yoshida was the youngest son of Hiroshi and Fujio Yoshida. Like his older brother Toshi, Hodaka displayed an early interest in art and woodblock prints but was encouraged to pursue science and higher education. After the war, Toshi became heir to the Yoshida Studio and Hodaka defied his father’s wishes—abandoning science for art, abstraction in particular, a style his father disdained. In 1953, he married Chizuko, a fellow woodblock print artist, and traveled the world together producing and exhibiting artwork influenced by their travels and the international artistic trends of the day. Hodaka’s body of work is diverse encompassing Shin Hanga–like designs at the onset of his career, which later progressed to encompassed fully abstract designs displaying Buddhist and primitive folkloric qualities. Hodaka also experimented with a pop surrealist style that incorporated elements of photography, advertising, and eroticism.

“Portraits in Green” is a transitional work by Hodaka Yoshida that showcases his interest in abstraction at a time when he had yet to completely abandon representational elements. The design illustrates two figures at the center looking in opposite directions. The figures are identifiable by their eyes, rendered in thin gray slots. Their elongated heads and torsos might bring to mind the indigenous sculptures at Easter Island. The background appears ornamental, suitable for the backdrop of portraits, with thinly applied scratches and gouges carved superficially onto the surface of the block. The portraits’ emotional and psychological impacts derive from the colors and forms themselves which signals Hodaka’s near conversion to abstraction.

Connoisseur's Note

Hodaka Yoshida’s woodblock prints from this period are quite scarce, as he did not produce work in large quantities. Making this work even more desirable, this impression was never framed or displayed for extended periods of time ensuring the colors are in a pristine state of preservation, appearing as vivid today as they were the day the work was produced.