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- landscape prints, which were so two dimensional. On the prints which he supervised from start to finish, he placed the mark, jizuri or self-printed. The ones that do not have this mark were produced without his supervision or posthumously.
Yoshida was one of the few Japanese shin hanga artists to depict foreign scenes. He was able to finance his trips to North America, Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia, China and Korea through the sale of his paintings and prints. He took much joy in depicting the architectural marvels of ancient times, like the sphinx in Egypt and the Acropolis ruins in Greece, as well as the impressive natural beauty of the countries he visited. In Japan too, he would travel extensively on hiking trips, sketching majestic mountains, quaint countryside scenes and architectural wonders. He was a true master at capturing the essence of water, whether it be a busy sea port, a trickling stream or tranquil lake. Yoshida was a master at capturing the calmer moments of nature, in the very personal, quiet mood of his designs.
Yoshida was extremely prolific and very successful in the West. At the special 1930 exhibition of shin hanga prints at the Toledo Museum of Art, of the 342 prints on display, 113 were by Yoshida, and at the second Toledo exhibition in 1936, he exhibited 67 of the 289 prints. He can truly be credited with revitalizing Japanese printmaking at a time when Western influence was threatening all forms of traditional Japanese art. Yoshida can be accred�ited with building cultural bridges among nations and in reversing the decline of printmaking in Japan.
Yoshida's family's association with the arts is worth noting. His adop�tive father, Yoshida Kasaburo, was an art teacher and his daughter, Fujio, whom Yoshida would marry, was also a talented painter. They produced a third generation of artists, Toshi, a noted shin hanga and sosaku hanga artist, and Hodaka, a successful sosaku hanga artist. Both sons would marry artists and they, too, would give birth to a fourth generation of artists.
Yoshida's son, Yoshida Toshi (1911-1995), succeeded his father in the shin hanga field and carried on in a manner much like his father. Toshi was greatly influenced by his father's work and learned the skills of carving blocks and various printing techniques from him. He would become a very accomplished printmaker, who knew how to make use of light and texture to produce simple yet charming landscapes and genre scenes. His prints have an unpretentious sense of nostalgia and some of his architectural depictions with subdued colours show very interesting angles of view which are most attractive. He seems to have varying moods in his prints from bright optimism to dark pessimism.
In 1966 he made a drastic about-face. He became a convert to abstract art in the sosaku hanga field and condemned both ukiyo-e and shin hanga, writing in a book:
AGGV COLLECTS/SHIN HANGA 15
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