<b>MOMENTARY ILLUSION</b> / Tetsuro Komai1951<b>SOLD</b></em>

Details

Tetsuro Komai is one of Japan's most celebrated copperplate printmakers. His designs are highly imaginative, often evoking mysterious, dreamlike imagery with a mastery of the medium. Komai studied oil painting in school, but his travels to Europe and his association with the master copperplate printmaker Kiyoshi Hasegawa prompted him to take up the art form. However, it wasn't until his return to Japan, and under the tutelage of Sosaku Hanga artist Koshiro Onchi during his Ichimokukai (First Thursday Club) meetings, that the burgeoning printmaker received the inspirational sustenance needed to produce prints in earnest. Much like the other attendees in the Onchi-lead group, Komai received the encouragement to produce artwork that pushed the boundaries of both the technical aspects of printmaking and accepted artistic subjects. As a result, Komai developed unconventional printing techniques, such as utilizing sand and other foreign agents, to produce highly expressive printing effects that effectively combined his imaginative dreamlike subjects.

In Komai's print titled "Momentary Illusion," viewers are drawn into a mesmerizing world of surreal beauty. Komai's design conjures a kaleidoscope of shapes and forms, each imbued with a luminous quality that captivates the imagination. Spheres, squares, rectangles, and cylindrical forms gracefully float across a mysterious night landscape, evoking the sensation of a vision or dream. This surrealist landscape is a testament to Komai's artistic vision, with its phenomenal printing effects showcasing the artist's mastery of light, shadow, and form. Through intricate etching and aquatint techniques, Komai creates a spellbinding scene that invites viewers to explore the depths of their own imagination, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy with each intricately rendered detail.

Connoisseur's Note

Among Komai's body of work this piece stands out as one of the rarest and most sought-after designs. Notably, it received the special-section "Japanese in São Paulo Prize" at the First São Paulo Biennale in 1951. This accolade, bestowed upon an international competition open to all visual arts, reverberated throughout the Japanese art world. Traditionalists, who typically viewed printmaking as inferior to painting or sculpture, were astonished by this recognition.

As for the print itself, it is in impeccable condition.