Shiro (1898 - 1991 )
While Shiro Kasamatsu is best known for his Shin Hanga woodblock prints, he began his artistic career as a painter. A pupil of Kiyokata Kaburagi, Shiro actively exhibited his work in Bunten and Teiten, as well as other official exhibitions. In 1919, Kiyokata urged his student to design woodblock prints for the famed Shin Hanga publisher Shozaburo Watanabe. Along with the works of Hasui, Shotei and others, Watanabe published many of Shiro’s designs in the 1930s. In the 1950s, Shiro began working with the publisher Unsodo, releasing Eight Views of Tokyo and a series of kacho-e (bird-and-flower prints). Towards the end of his career, Shiro Kasamatsu channeled the spirit of the Sosaku Hanga movement, carving and printing his own woodblock prints.
Shin Hanga | Pre-WWII Japanese Prints
By the beginning of the 20th century the social fabric of Japan was radically altered and ukiyo-e was falling fast into oblivion. Surprisingly, it was under the stimulus of the Western art world that the spirit of ukiyo-e was reborn through the Shin Hanga or “new print” movement. The discovery of the powerful impact of ukiyo-e print masters on the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists inspired a new generation of Japanese print artists who revived distinctly Japanese subject matter through modern eyes. International excitement for ukiyo-e paved the way for these artists to create woodblock prints with the same dignity, perfection and genius as the masters of the Edo period. As artists such as Goyo, Kotondo and Shinsui revived bijin-ga (pictures of beautiful women) and Hasui and Yoshida reinterpreted the landscape of Japan, Shin Hanga reasserted the principal genres of ukiyo-e with a renewed vigor. Browse our collection of Shin Hanga and other pre-war Japanese woodblock prints today.
13 Products
Shiro
The Great Lantern at Kannon Temple, Asakusa
JPR1-58025
