Background
Kumagai Goro (熊谷吾良; 1932–2017), born in 1932 in Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture, was a Japanese visual artist and educator, known for his skills in designing and making woodcut prints. He graduated in 1956 from the department of Western painting at the Musashino Art University in Kodaira, Japan. Kumagai taught woodblock printing for many years at Saitama University in Saitama City, Japan.
Kumagai was a member of the Japan Print Association from 1961 until 1971, and a member of the Kokugakai (the National Painting Association) starting in 1963.
He designed woodblock-printed ex libris (bookplates) and representational abstracts as well as works that were entirely abstract. He produced fairly realistic still life (fish were a favorite theme) and birds, along with views of towns and countrysides, and buildings (建物) in curious arrangements. He used the words "allegory" and "illusion" in some of his print titles, in which human figures are hinted at rather than clearly depicted.
Design:
Kumagai's "Offerings to the gods" seems to include a human figure as the central vertical form. An altar may or may not be indicated. Occasionally, Kumgai's intention was to present allegories, as he so titled on a few prints from the start of the 1960s.
Another impression of this work is in the National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian (S2019.3.1055).
Kuroda's work can be found in such institutional collections as the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Canada; Art Institute of Chicago; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); Minneapolis Institute of Art; Philadelphia Museum of Art; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian, Washington, D.C.
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