A Print Master
Ahead of this month’s 60th anniversary CWAJ Print Show at the Club, iNTOUCH examines the remarkable career one of Japan’s enduring print artists.
It’s one of the most iconic works of Japanese art and has been reproduced countless times on everything from coffee mugs to smartphone cases. Hokusai’s “Under the Wave off Kanagawa,” with its raging sea, foundering boats and snowcapped Fuji, is arguably the artist’s most famous ukiyo-e woodblock print and representative of Japan’s rich history of printmaking.
Far less known is how woodblock prints (mokuhanga) have evolved since the country modernized in the late 19th century. For the past six decades, the College Women’s Association of Japan (CWAJ), a nonprofit organization focused on education and cross-cultural ties, has supported the work of printmakers and artists with an annual exhibition of contemporary Japanese prints.
This month marks the 60th anniversary of the CWAJ Print Show, and the cover of the catalog for the three-day, landmark event features a creation by an artist whose work appeared in the first exhibition in 1956.
Kunihiro Amano’s prints represent a spectrum of techniques and themes that reflect various stages of his long career, which began in the 1950s. Over the years, his style has ranged from figurative to surrealist to abstract, with depictions of birds and fish giving way to colorful, geometric patterns, often orbiting concentric circles.
One such characteristic work graced the cover of a catalog for a 2009 retrospective exhibition at the Hirosaki City Museum. “Multiplication in Image 11,” from 1997, is a dizzying study in scarlet, with chessboard and chevron linear patterns dancing with undulating lines, green squares and a central black triangle. Seemingly generated by a computer, the print was created through a laborious process of cutting out patterns in wood and arranging them in various stages.
As if to channel the power of Hokusai’s towering wave, Amano’s studio is on the Kanagawa coast near Enoshima. A stone’s throw from the sea, it’s surrounded by modern condos off a busy coastal road. A surfboard stands by the entrance to his print shop, which overflows with pots of paintbrushes and stencils for drawing his trademark patterns. In his tattered smock, 86-year-old Amano still works long hours creating prints. It takes months to complete each one, from the initial designs in pencil to the finished work, which forms part of a series.
Born in Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture, in 1929, Amano was raised in Tokyo as a child and, during World War II, was nearly evacuated to Hiroshima, the hometown of his father, who made a living selling souvenir prints of Mount Fuji and other iconic Japanese scenes in Tokyo. Instead, he was sent back to Aomori, where he witnessed the air raids on Ominato, part of present-day Mutsu City, on the northernmost tip of Honshu.
After the war, Amano returned to Tokyo, where he attended various art institutes that offered pay-as-you-go courses. Unable to find a job in the depressed postwar economy, he picked up short-term freelance work, producing illustrations for articles in magazines and even painting scenes for frescoes in sento public bathhouses. One of his more successful lines was painting portraits from photos of American servicemen at the Tachikawa Air Base in western Tokyo.
“Back then, artists worked just to earn a living,” says Amano, sitting in his Shonan home. “The situation was very severe. My memories are mainly about my struggle to survive.”
But Amano had ambitions beyond commercial art. Although he had studied woodblock printmaking at elementary school, as well as at the art academies, his choice of specialty was for practical reasons. He wanted to exhibit his works at art competitions at museums in the Ueno area, but couldn’t afford to transport his large oil paintings all the way across town from his home in Kichijoji. Woodblock prints offered a pragmatic, easy-to-carry solution.
His first exhibition with the venerable Japan Print Association, which holds its 83rd annual exhibition this year, was in 1951, and his works soon began to win awards. Following solo shows in Japan in 1960, Amano exhibited in Europe, the United States and Australia. In the 1970s and ’80s, his works garnered numerous accolades in international competitions.
Amano prefers to let his work speak for itself. He doesn’t identify with any particular art movement or inspirational artist. “Earlier on, I did more figurative work, but there were always artists who are better at that kind of thing,” he says, with characteristic modesty. “I found it easier to express myself with abstract art.”
One thing Amano does acknowledge is his groundbreaking work with materials. Visually, his prints are striking for their bold, rich colors, such as his dazzling compositions with deep reds, blues and greens. He says he was the first artist in Japan to use oil paints instead of water-based paints for printmaking, an accomplishment he puts down to a lack of skill with the latter.
That move translated into a long-term demand for his prints overseas, particularly in New York. He has often written English words in pencil in the margin below his prints, with titles such as “The Flowers in Distant Memory” and “Waking Dream,” evoking a psychological depth to the abstract designs.
“Tacit 3,” a composition in grays and reds, is featured on the cover of the catalog for this year’s CWAJ Print Show, which celebrates its milestone with a special exhibition, titled “Kanreki: A 60-Year Journey,” and a competition exhibition of artists under 40 years old.
“Amano’s widely acclaimed prints helped the CWAJ Print Show gain prestige,” says Teru Maruyama, a longtime CWAJ member who has been involved with the show for 25 years. “Most of his submitted works were of the concrete art genre. The absence of Amano prints in the CWAJ Print Show in recent years is due to his belief that older artists should make way for young artists. We proudly welcome back Amano prints in this very special anniversary year.”
Horynak is a Tokyo-based freelance journalist.
60th CWAJ Print Show
Oct 30, 11am–8pm
Oct 31, 11am–7pm
Nov 1, 11am–6pm
New York Ballroom and Frederick Harris Gallery
Free | Open to the public
Words: Tim Hornyak
Photo: Kayo Yamawaki
