Japanese Woodblock Print, c.1940s, self published

SIZE IN INCHES: large koban, 8.5 x 6 inches

MAEDA MASAO (1904-1974) was born in Hakodate, island of Hokkaido, and met Hiratsuka Un'ichi, a leader of the sosaku hanga print movement, there in 1923. He moved to Tokyo in 1925 and joined the private Kawabata Painting School, moving on to more thoroughly study Western-style painting (yoga) with Umehara Ryuzauro, who knew Hiratsuka. At first he painted in oils, but by associating with Hiratsuka in the so-called Yoyogi Group (print artists who gathered at Hiratsuka's house in the Yoyogi district of Tokyo in the 1930s) and in the Kokuga-kai (National Painting Association) he learned woodblock techniques and began to make and exhibit prints in the 1930s. In 1940 he turned exclusively to prints. He was a member of Onchi Koshiro's, another leader of the sosaku hanga print movement, Ichimoku-kai1 (First Thursday Society). He contributed to One Hundred New Views of Japan (1940), the two Kitsutsuki Hanga-shu collections (1942-3) and nos 3-6 of the Ichimokushu collections (1947-50), as well as Tokyo Kaiko Zue (Scenes of Lost Tokyo) (1945) and Nihon Minzoku Zufu (1946). He was publicised by Oliver Statler in his book Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints: An Art Reborn (1956) (where his date of birth is given as 1906.) A typical sosaku hanga group artist in many ways, Maeda nevertheless showed untypically the influence of Nihonga native-style painting.

VG, minor flaws