Paris, Trocadero
Artist
Ono Tadashige
(Japanese, 1909 - 1990)
Date1961
PeriodShōwa period (1926–1989)
MediumWoodblock print; ink and color on paper
DimensionsImage: 8 3/4 × 11 3/4 in. (22.3 × 29.8 cm)
ClassificationsPrints
Credit LineGift of Paul and Christine Meehan, 2018
Object numberSN11627
During the 1920s and 1930s, Ono Tadashige made expressionistic, monochromatic images representing the plight of Japan’s downtrodden working classes. His leftist views barred him from participating in official exhibitions, but Ono nonetheless won acclaim for his arresting prints.
Following the Second World War, Ono began creating the brooding color prints for which he is best known today. Many of these are inspired by his travels abroad; the setting of this print is the Eiffel Tower in Paris, which Ono visited in 1961 when travelling in Europe on the occasion of an exhibition of Japanese prints in the USSR.
The disquieting atmosphere and rich texture of Ono’s postwar works was acheived through an innovative process he developed that began with darkening textured paper with ink. Before printing the colors, he impressed the woodblocks with gouache to increase their opacity, such that they seem to reverberate rather than being absorbed into the dark ground.
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