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- Kanpo Yoshikawa (1894-1979) was another of the great artists working in the actor print genre. He was personally involved with the Kabuki theatre as a stage designer as well as being an advisor to a prominent theatre company He designed several memorable actor prints for the publisher Sato Shotaro.
Of the late shin hanga artists who produced actor prints, Tadamasa Torii (1904-1970) and Ota Masamitsu (1892-1975) were the best known and most competent. Ota, in particular, has powerful images with a confident crisp�ness in line and colour. In contrast to other shin hanga actor designers, he often had interesting backgrounds behind his figures. A modern artist named Kokei has been producing actor prints in the shin hanga vein, but with a great deal more humour than his predecessors
Another rather unique designers of actor prints was Kogyo (Tsukioka) Sakamaki (1869-1927), who was the stepson of the late great ukiyo-e master, Yoshitoshi Tsukioka (1839-1892). He learned the basic elements of print design from his stepfather and Gekko Ogata. Kogyo was unique in that he chose to illustrate Noh dramas rather than the customary Kabuki plays. His prints illustrated the entire figure and sometimes scenes rather than head or bust portraits. He produced a huge number of prints based on Noh dramas, as well as some prints on nature studies.
Kacho-e
(Bird-and-Flower Prints or Nature Studies)
Kacho-e was a popular subject of the ukiyo-e artists, but does not appear to have been as popular with the shin hanga movement. There were a great number produced in the early 20th century, but they appear to have been more destined for the foreign market than for Japanese clientele.
Watanabe realized the potential of the nature prints and commissioned a number from Koson (Shoson) Ohara (1877-1945), a painter in the naturalis�tic style of the Shijo school of painting. Koson, who changed his name to Shoson in 1911 or 1912, had been encouraged by the great American advo�cate of traditional Japanese arts and crafts at the Tokyo Imperial University, Ernest Fenollosa (1853-1908), to take up printmaking. Koson started with Russo-Japanese war prints, but soon went on to design bird-and-flower prints. Shoson began designing prints for Watanabe in 1926 and later used other publishers. He produced a seemingly endless number of prints in large editions. His prints vary in quality, but generally his earlier prints are more highly esteemed. His finest prints show an incredible skill and a meticulous attention to detail.
Other bird and flower artists of the shin hanga tradition include Sozan Ito (1884-?). While he was published by Watanabe, little else is known about him. He tended to prefer a long rectangular format for his prints. The birds
AGGV COLLECTS/SHIN HANGA 29
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