<b>RED COLLAR</b>Yamakawa Shuho1930<b>SOLD</b></em>

Details

Shuho was an accomplished Nihonga-style painter active in the Taisho and Showa eras. His primary focus was on bijin-ga, or portraits of beautiful women. Beyond the large body of work executed in painting, the artist produced a handful of woodblock print designs. This work, “Red Collar,” is among his most striking print compositions. This design features a three-quarters-length portrait of a woman dressed in a stylish checkered kimono with a red collar. The composition is restrained and sophisticated. The success of the design lies in its simplicity and the delicate manner in which the artist treats the woman’s hair, face, and neck. The vast portion of the composition is dedicated to the woman’s well-coiffed hair, paying careful attention to the wispy strands that are closest to her face. Her profile, positioned mostly away from the viewer, only gives a hint of her well-proportioned soft features. What remains is a partial view of the woman’s neck with a hint of the nape, an area of erotic interest in Japan.

Connoisseur's Note

The print comes with the hanshita, or keyblock, and the original painting. The hanshita was produced for the purpose of creating the subsequent color blocks for the design. These keyblocks were destroyed in the process of carving the color blocks. The original painting by Shuho is a faithful rendering of the woodblock print displaying only slight changes. It was this original that was commissioned by the publisher for the design’s production into woodblock prints. Hence this suite of three works is an exceedingly rare and valuable look at the artistic process at work for woodblock print production.