Kawanishi Hide (川西英) -- OsakaPrints.com -- Japanese Ukiyo-e Woodblock and Modern Prints and Paintings

Background

Kawanishi Hide (川西英), 1894-1965, whose given name was Hideo, was born and worked in Kobe, an international port city that inspired much of his subject matter. He was employed as a postmaster, but his ancestors were merchants, particularly traders in several alcoholic spirits, sake (酒 or nihonshu 日本酒), mirin (味醂), and shôchû (焼酎), which they transported to Tokyo in their fleet of ships. Kawanishi's family opposed his becoming involved in painting and printmaking. A self-taught artist, Kawanishi started painting in oils, but turned to woodblock printmaking after seeing a print by Yamamoto Kanae (A small bay in Brittany) displayed in a shop window in Osaka. He was not interested in ukiyo-e, although Nagasaki-e naturally fascinated him, with its exotic ships and foreign traders. Gradually abandoning oils, Kawanishi fell under the influence of the Art Deco poster style of the 1920s and first exhibited prints in 1923 with the Nihon Sôsaku Hanga Kyôkai (Japan Creative Print Association 日本創作版画協会 founded 1918). Other influences were Takehisa Yumeji (竹久夢二), Onchi Kôshirô (恩地孝四郎), Yamamoto Kanae (山本鼎), and European artists such as Lautrec, Gaugin, Van Gogh, Leger, and Matisse.

Kawanishi used poster colors and sumi (Japanese carbon black, i.e., soot, water, and glue), cutting his blocks with a curved chisel to obtain soft edges. He used katsura or ho wood, and printed on hodomura paper. He produced a large number of single-sheet designs (possibly as many as 1,000), as well as printed albums and books, and sets or series. The latter included Shôwa bijin fûzoku jûnitai (Twelve customs of beauties from the Shôwa era), 1929; Kobe jûnigagetsu fûkei (Scenes of Kobe during the twelve months), 1931; and Hanga Kobe hyakkei (Prints of one hundred views of Kobe), 1935. Kawanishi was awarded the Hyôgo Prefecture Culture Prize (1949) and the Kobe Shinbun Peace Prize (1962). His son Kawanishi Yûzaburô (川西祐三郎 1923-2014) worked in his father's style, but with more international subjects. Yûzaburô also edited the catalogue raisonné of his father's prints (see ref. below).

For more about this artist, see Kawanishi Biography.

Design

Kawanishi's view of the Port Festival (the title "Minato no matsuri" みなとの祭 is inscribed along the right vertical edge) is from Kôbe hyakkei (One hundred scenes of Kobe: 神戸百景). The series was prompted by two occurrences. First, from 1929 to 1932, there was the publication of Shin Tokyo hyakkei (One hundred views of new Tokyo: 新東京百景) involving eight different artists, which served as an inspirational model for a contemporary remake of the 100-views theme already familiar in the ukiyo-e tradition. In particular, Kawanishi liked the 12 scenes by Kawakami Sumio (川上澄生 also 川上澄夫 1895-1972). Kawanishi, in fact, owned an impression of Kawakami's Marunouchi kumoribi (A cloudy day in Marunouchi: 丸の内曇日). Second, the first Kobe minato no matsuri ("port festival": みなとの祭) was held in 1933, which suggested to Kawanishi an occasion to celebrate his home town in his own print series. In 1933, Kawanishi designed the first print and finished all 100 designs by 1936 — a significant effort given that he both carved the blocks and printed the initial impressions.

In Kawanishi's view of the parade at the Kobe Port Festival, the crush of the crowd and explosion of color and forms is rather wonderful. The overflow of detail is somehow (miraculously) controlled in three complementary pictorial spaces. Along the top there is a horizontal "zone" with onlookers gawking from open windows. In the middle space we see festival floats placed along a gentle diagonal, with the festival queen centered among her court attendants and a riot of flowers. Then, in the foreground, again with an easy slope, there are more than twenty Kobeites watching the parade, their heads forming no particular pattern but adding to the rhythms of the scene.

Our impression is in excellent condition, with intensely bright colors and margins on all four sides. It also happens to be a rare, very early printing, with an inscription in the right margin. There was, as well, an extra color block for the purple compared with the example illustrated in the Koiso Memorial Museum of Art catalogue (see ref. below). All told, an excellent find!

References:

D'Orlando, A., de Vries, M, Uhlenbeck, C. and Wessels, E.: Nostalgia and Modernity: The Styles of Komura Settai and Kawanishi Hide. Amsterdam: Nihin no Hanga, spring 2012. (exhibition cat.).
Kawanishi Hide, Gashû "Kôbe hyakkei" Kawanishi Hide ga aishita fûkei (Collected pictures, "100 Scenes of Kobe," favorite scenes of Kawanishi Hide: 画集『神戸百景』川西英が愛した風景), 2008.
Kawanishi Yûzaburô (川西祐三郎 ed.), Kawanishi Hide hanga shû (Collected prints of Kawanishi Hide, 川西英版画須). Tokyo: Masao Koga and Keishôsha Co., publisher: 1980, Vol. I, no. 2, p. 173.
Kobe City Koiso Memorial Museum of Art: (Kawanishi Hide, the retrospective. 120th anniversary of his birth (Kobe shiritsu Koiso kinen bijutsukan (神戸市立小磯記念美術館), Kawanishi hide kaiko ten — Seitan ichihyakunijû nen (川西回顧展生誕120年). Kobe: 2014, no. 63-1, p. 62.
Uhlenbeck, C., Newland, A.R., de Vries, M.: Waves of renewal: modern Japanese prints, 1900 to 1960, Selections from the Nihon no hanga collections, Amsterdam. Hotei Publishing, 2016, pp. 240-246.