Artist: Oda Kazuma 織田一磨 (1882-1956)
Title: View of Mihonoseki, Izumo Date: ca. 1925
A woman and her companion are seen at ease through the window of a restaurant upper left, and we also get to enjoy their view of the harbor. Rain falls in diagonal lines across our view. On the water are some old-fashioned wooden boats, and at the dock we see a motorized vessel that must be a ferry, its smokestack emitting plumes of white exhaust. Folks are lined up on the dock. To the right is a sailboat as well as another motorized vessel, its smoke plume ending in an interesting array of crosshatching. Titled “Izumo mihonoseki no kei”, lower left, in margin. The port town of Mihonoseki in Matsue features this small, historic harbor, which flourished during the Edo period. It still looks largely the same today as it did in this view from one hundred years ago. It is still surrounded by an abundance of nature and offers a wonderful view of Mount Daisen. Its main feature is the Miho Shrine, the main shrine to Ebisu, the god of fishermen.
Oda Kazuma is best known as a sosaku-hanga artist, and was one of the founding members of Nippon sosaku hanga kyoka (Society of Japanese creative prints) in 1918. The artist was also most prolific in producing lithographic prints, and his lithographs were even included in the 1930 Toledo Museum of Art exhibition. In the early 1920s, however, Kazuma collaborated with Watanabe Shozaburo on six designs that were in the shin hanga tradition, with professional carvers and printers bringing his designs to life. This print was included by Watanabe in the important 1930 exhibition of shin hanga at the Toledo Museum of Art. This work never has a Watanabe seal (save for the single Muller Collection example), and it was never reprinted at a later date.
Condition: Excellent impression, color and condition. A few tiny stains at the very edges of the print. Dimensions:26.8 x 39 cm
References: Dorothy Blair, Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints, Toledo Museum of Art, 1930 (1997 reprint), no. 172; Lawrence Smith, The Japanese Print Since 1900, 1983, photo p. 89, p. 92, no. 71; Amanda T. Zehnder, Modern Japanese Prints: The Twentieth Century, Carnegie Museum of Art, 2009, p. 136; Carolyn M. Putney, et. al., Fresh Impressions: Early Modern Japanese Prints, Toledo Museum of Art, 2013, p. 211, cat. no. 179; The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. See Carnegie Museum of Art, Toledo Museum of Art, Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art.
SKU: OKZ015
