Hiratsuka, Unichi (1895 - 1997 )
Unichi Hiratsuka was one of the leaders of the Sosaku Hanga movement and the teacher of Shiko Munakata. Hiratsuka was born in Matsue, Japan and his father was a shrine carpenter. Between 1935 and 1944 Hiratsuka taught the first woodblock printing class at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. In 1962, he moved to Washington D.C., where he lived for 33 years. During his time in Washington DC, he was commissioned by three Presidents to create woodblock prints of national landmarks, including the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument and the Library of Congress. These prints can now be found in the collections of the National Gallery and the Freer Gallery. He received Order of Cultural Merit from the Japanese government in 1970. In 1991, the Hiratsuka Unichi Print Museum opened in Nagano. Hiratsuka returned to Japan in 1994.
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.
