Hakone

Artist Sasajima Kihei Japanese, 1906–1993

Date1958

Mediumwoodblock print, ink on paper

Dimensions46.2 x 38 cm (18 3/16 x 14 15/16 in.)

ClassificationsPrints

Credit LineHarriet B. Bancroft Fund

Terms

Object number2004.2

Label TextSasajima Kihei was born in Mashiko, Tochigi Prefecture, where he befriended the famous potter Hamada Shoji when the latter settled there in 1924 and made it a center of the Folk Art Movement. Graduating in 1927 from Aoyama Teacher's School, Sasajima worked as a teacher until 1945 when he could devote himself full-time to printmaking. Studying with the print-masters Hiratsuka Un'ichi and Munakata Shiko in the late 1930s, Sasajima became an active member of print societies formed by Munakata to promote the exhibition of prints.

Influenced by his teachers, Sasajima produced mainly monochrome prints. This rare, atmospheric early view of Hakone on Lake Ashinoko, Kanagawa Prefecture, is rendered with a lively interplay of calligraphic light and dark lines that not only emphasize the two-dimensional plane of the unbleached, absorbent nisoshi paper, but also show the play of sunlight over the landscape.

In 1959, while weakened by protracted illness, Sasajima invented the three-dimensional embossing technique inspired by stone rubbing for which he is most widely known. It involves forcing damp paper into the grooves of a carved woodblock under the pressure of an etching press and then using pads to dab the raised areas with ink.ProvenanceJeanne Davidson Fine Prints, New York, NY

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