Mizufune Rokushū

From BM:

Biography

Sculptor and print artist. Like many sculptors in the twentieth century, Mizufune was also attracted to drawing and to graphic art. Although best known in Japan as a sculptor, his distinctive post-war prints (from 1955 onwards) added something new to both technique and style in the woodblock print, and his palette is unmistakable. He was born in Kure in Hiroshima Prefecture and studied sculpture at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, graduating in 1936. Like so many others there, his interest in printmaking was nurtured by attending the side-courses given by Hiratsuka Un'ichi (q.v.). Already influenced as a boy by Edvard Munch, he became a co-founder in 1932 of the 'proletarian' Shin Hanga Shudan (New Print Group) which also included Ono Tadashige (q.v.). Ono's post-war prints, densely pigmented over a black ground, are evidently the major inspiration for Mizufune's own technique. After the Pacific War he worked as an art teacher in Yokohama while gaining a good reputation as a sculptor and winning those prizes in official exhibitions necessary for success in twentieth-century Japan. After 1955 he began to exhibit his prints more widely, including the influential Tokyo International Print Biennales from 1960. He spent the year 1961-2 in the USA, where he was resident artist at the Putney School at Marlboro College, Vermont, confirming the international tendencies of his work, though their underlying sentiment is typically Japanese in their sense of loneliness. The dating of his works is very difficult, as he often printed impressions at long intervals after cutting the blocks, changed the colours as he felt appropriate, and maintained a very consistent style over the years. He rarely added dates to any of his prints.

Bibliography

Smith, Lawrence, 'Modern Japanese Prints 1912-1989: Woodblocks and Stencils', BMP, London, 1994, p. 30 and nos 120-1.

Statler, Oliver, 'Japan's Modern Prints - Sosaku Hanga', exh. cat., Art Institute of Chicago, January-March 1960.

Petit, Gaston, '44 Modern Japanese Print Artists', II, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 1973, pp. 54-5.

Merritt, Helen, 'Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints: The Early Years', University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1990, pp. 255-6.

Merritt, Helen, and Yamada, Nanako, 'Guide to Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints 1900-1975', University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1992, pp. 93-4.

Johnson, Margaret D., and Hilton, Dale E., 'Japanese Prints Today: Tradition with Innovation', Shufunotomo, Tokyo, 1980, pp. 72-9

http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/term_details.aspx?bioId=145790