Shiro Kasamatsu

In front left side: Shiro Kasamatsu, right side Shōzaburō Watanabe. In the back from left: Moriyama, Kawase Hasui, collector Robert Muller and wife Inge,[1] Itō Shinsui and his wife (1941)

Shiro Kasamatsu (笠松 紫浪, Kasamatsu Shirō, 11 January 1898, Tokyo – 14 June 1991) was a Japanese engraver and print maker trained in the Shin-Hanga and Sōsaku-Hanga styles of woodblock printing.

Kasamatsu was born in Tokyo in 1898 and apprenticed at the age of 13 to Kaburagi Kiyokata (1878–1973), a traditional master of Bijin-ga, pictures of beautiful women. Kasamatsu however took an interest in landscape and was given the pseudonym Shiro by his teacher, which he used as a signature mark in his prints.[2] Kasamatsu made woodblock prints for the publisher Shōzaburō Watanabe from 1919. Almost all the woodblocks were destroyed in a fire in Watanabe's print shop following the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. Around 50 prints were published by Watanabe by the late 1940s.[3] Kasamatsu began to partner with Unsodo in Kyoto from the 1950s and produced over 100 prints by 1960.[4] He also began to print and publish on his own in the Sōsaku-Hanga style. He produced nearly 80 Sōsaku-Hanga prints between 1955 and 1965.[5][6]

References

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  1. ^ https://shotei.com/articles/bobmuller/bobmuller.htm [bare URL]
  2. ^ Blair, Dorothy (1997). Modern Japanese prints: printed from a photographic reproduction of two exhibition catalogues of modern Japanese prints. Toledo Museum of Art.
  3. ^ "Shiro Kasamatsu". 6 July 2024.
  4. ^ "Shiro Kasamatsu". 17 November 2023.
  5. ^ Merrit, Helen; Yamada, Nanako (1995). Guide to Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints: 1900-1975. University of Hawaii Press. pp. 54–55.
  6. ^ "Shiro Kasamatsu". 27 June 2024.
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