1960s Japanese Wood Block Print Floral Still Life

Description

Woodcut print of a vase with flowers. The work is signed by the artist and dated. It is framed in … more Woodcut print of a vase with flowers. The work is signed by the artist and dated. It is framed in a gold frame with a dark blue matte.

Artist Biography: Mabuchi Toru was born in 1920 in Tokyo as the son of a woodblock engraver and artist. His father was his first teacher. Later he entered the Tokyo University of Fine Arts and became a student of the sosaku hanga artist Unichi Hiratsuka. Mabuchi Toru graduated from Tokyo University in 1941 at the beginning of the Pacific War.

After the war Mabuchi Toru became a full-time artist. Among the artists of the sosaku hanga art movement, he is rather unique due to a strange technique that he had developed himself. The website of the Bristish Museum describes it as follows.

"By this time he had developed a unique way of printing which is close to Pointillisme. He cuts up very thin wood into small pieces which he then glues to his block in a mosaic-like pattern. A large number of these may go to make one print. His production is therefore rather small."
Favorite themes of the artist are landscapes, still lifes and pottery.

Mabuchi Toru died in 1994. less