<b>OURA CATHEDRAL, NAGASAKI </b> / Ken Tagawa1956<b>SOLD</b></em>

Details

Born in the port city of Nagasaki, Ken Tagawa was fortunate enough to be well-positioned at a meeting point to the world. Foreign influences, particularly in art, flooded the town. Eager to engage with these influences, Tagawa incorporated foreign elements within his woodblock print designs that primarily focused on his hometown. In this print, Tagawa depicts the stained glass windows of the Oura Cathedral in Nagasaki. The structure is one of only a handful of foreign religious buildings deemed a National Treasure, designated during Tagawa’s lifetime.

Tagawa’s design has a sharp modernist bent, bringing to mind the photography of Ralston Crawford. The composition is a tight focus on the windows and part of the roofline, forsaking a look at the entire structure. The arch of the windows points upward, perhaps suggesting the spiritual nature of the structure’s purpose.

Connoisseur's Note

A Sosaku Hanga artist, Tagawa’s work is entirely self-directed and self-produced. This design is hand-signed and dated in the image and numbered 26/50 in the lower left margin. It is important to note that much like Onchi, the inspirational leader of the movement, Tagawa’s prints often vary from impression to impression. This particular impression is printed with strong attention to the stained glass windows, highlighting the various colors within the mosaic composition. The structure itself is rendered in a mix of browns and tans that is printed quite expressively and appears quite lifelike. The printing quality of this impression recalls Koshiro Onchi’s Confucian Temple design offered here.