Japanese Woodblock Print, 1961, 1st/only edition, titled, signed and numbered 20/20 in ink on attached backing sheet

SIZE IN INCHES: approx. 11.5 x 8.75 inches

TADASHIGE ONO (1909-1990) attended Waseda School of Business from 1921 and joined a water-colorist's society. Continued painting while working in the family food business. After exhibiting at the Proletarian Art Exhibition in 1929, began making woodblock prints influenced by German Expressionism. Exhibited with the Japan Print Association from 1932. Co-founded the New Print Group in 1932 with Fujimaki Yoshio (1909-1935), reorganizing it into the Plastic (Formative) Print Association in 1937. Was unable to work with the Japan Creative Print Association because of his strong leftist views, but won its prize in 1936. In 1941 established his own publishing company and published the first of many books on printmaking and its history. From about 1948 developed his own special technique known as inkoku tashoku-zuri mokuhan (color negative woodblock printing). From that year on he began exhibiting at the Japan Independent Exhibition and continued to do so up to 1983.

He constantly championed the cause of art for the masses and maintained a close contact in his work with the realities of ordinary life. Ono is now remembered historically as one of the driving forces behind the sosaku hanga movement, though always a little peripheral to its mainstream. He was a major writer on Japanese graphics, including Modern Japanese Prints (Kindai Nihon no hanga), published in 1971. Critics consider his early proletarian works as derivative, but laud his later production of color prints (c.1955-75), "with their distinctively glowing palette." Already popular with a relatively small group of collectors during his lifetime, his reputation has soared after his death, and his work is now in great demand.

VG no flaws of note