<b>TEAHOUSE</b> / Hodaka Yoshida1956<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.

Stones and a winding gray path lead to a small teahouse. The design is bold in its simplicity with a strong mid-century modern feeling. The print’s charm hinges in its masterful editing—all compositional elements are pared down to their most essential and potent form placed in perfect proximity to one another creating asymmetrical harmony. Perhaps the austere and profound symbolism of the tea ceremony has filtered through to this design and has prepared the artist for his aesthetic embrace of 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.