Hagiwara, Hideo (1913 - 2007 )
Born in Kofu, Hideo Hagiwara attended Tokyo School of Fine Arts, studying under Un'ichi Hiratsuka, a pioneer of the Sosaku Hanga, or "creative print," movement. Hagiwara graduated in 1938, but his artistic career was put on hold when he was conscripted into the army in 1943. He returned to printmaking in 1950, working with the creative print movement's philosophy that art was self expression and consequently should be the product of a single creator. For some of his best known abstract prints, Hagiwara moved directly from conceptualization to woodblock carving without any intermediary sketch. His works are recognized as some of the most influential post-WWII Japanese prints.
Sosaku Hanga | Post-WWII Japanese Prints
The Sosaku Hanga or “creative print” movement emerged in the changing Japan of the early 20th century. The movement arose from a central tenant: the artist must participate in every aspect of production. As artists shed the traditional delegation of ukiyo-e production and explored each role themselves, the act of printmaking adopted a more spontaneous, expressive attitude. Artists explored with the knife, chisel, woodblock, and ink to push to the boundaries of their medium. Originally excluded from Japan’s formal art world, Sosaku Hanga began on the pages of magazines. It was not until 1919 that the first Sosaku Hanga exhibition opened in Tokyo. Ranging from figural to abstract, the movement flourished after WWII, and found a new, eager audience among American GIs. In this collection, Ronin Gallery presents masters of Sosaku Hanga such as Onchi, Ono, Munakata, Saito, Sekino, and Mori, as well as other post-war Japanese printmakers.