Sasajima, Kihei (1906 - 1993 )
Kihei Sasajima was a woodblock print artist active during the 20th century. Born in Mashiko, Tochigi Prefecture, Sasajima took drawing classes while he studied to become a teacher in Tokyo. Between 1927 and 1945, he worked as a teacher and studied printmaking on the side. In 1935, he attended a course led by Unichi Hiratsuka, a metor who is thought to have influenced Sasajima’s tendency towards monochrome compositions. Three years later, he became the student of Shiko Munakata, another influential figure in the Sosaku Hanga movement. Sasajima first exhibited at the Kokuga-kai in 1940.
By 1945, he had left his position as an elementary school teacher to pursue printmaking full time. In 1948, The Mitsukoshi Theater commissioned a series based on their Kabuki performances and Sasajima became a member of the Japan Print Association. He left the organization just four year later to found the Japanese Woodblock Print Academy (Nihon Hanga-in) with Munakata. Sasajima rose to international prominence when two of his prints were published in Oliver Statler’s Modern Japanese Prints: An Art Reborn (1956), and his work was included in an exhibition of Japanese woodblock prints in Yugoslavia and in the Tokyo Biennials held between 1957 and 1966. Sasajima joined Okiie Hashimoto in a two-man show in Washington D.C. in 1959 and he fell ill that same year. Weakened from his illness, Sasajima developed a new technique. He drew inspiration from stone rubbing, using a press to press the paper deep in the cut block, then applying ink the raised areas. This technique gives his prints a distinct three-dimensionality. In 1967, he published a book of his essays on art titled Itchin.
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.
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