Azechi Umetaro

Azechi Umetarō ( Japanese 畦 地 梅太郎 ; December 28, 1902 in Futana (today: Uwajima ) - April 12, 1999 ) was a Japanese woodcut artist of the Sōsaku-hanga direction.

life and work

Azechi was born in Futana ( 二 名 ) ( Ehime Prefecture ) as the son of a poor farmer who was an amateur who made woodcuts, among other things for local festivals. Azechi was initially a seaman on merchant ships and from 1920 he was a newspaper carrier in Tokyo. There he continued his art education through distance learning. After the Great Kanto earthquake in 1923, he returned home briefly, but was back in Tokyo in 1925. The following year he got a job at the National Printing House and began to experiment with etchings on lead plates.

Encouraged by Hiratsuka Un'ichi , he turned to the woodcut, and was soon able to show pictures at an exhibition of the "Society for Creative Woodcut" ( 日本 創作 版画 , Nihon sōsaku hanga kyōkai ). From then on he worked as a freelance artist and, in addition to prints, also produced book illustrations and book covers. He was stylistically influenced by Maekawa Sempan and Onchi Kōshirō . One result were the ten prints "Landscapes of Iyo ", which appeared in 1936. For this series, he traveled around the prefecture, taking a liking to mountaineering. Between 1939 and 1941 he participated in the "Hundred New Views of Tokyo" ( 新 東京 百 景 , Shin Tōkyō hakkei ). During the Second World War he was sent to Manchuria in 1943 to work as an artist.

From 1950 his series "Bergbewohner" was created. He wrote articles and books on the mountain world, beginning with “Treasures of the Mountains” ( 山 の 目 玉 , Yama no medama ). Like other artists of his generation, Azechi benefited from American interest in Japanese woodblock prints after 1945. The demand in the 1950s and 1960s thus spurred his work. Associated with this was an increasing simplification of his image design.

In 2003 the private Azechi Art Museum ( 畦 地 梅太郎 記念 美術館 , Azechi Umetarō kinen bijutsukan ) was opened in Mimachō-Muden ( 三 間 町 務 田 ), a district of Uwajima .

Remarks

1. ↑ Today the district of Uwajima.
2. ↑ Iyo ( 伊 予 ) is the old name of today's Ehime Prefecture.

literature

• Lawrence Smith: Modern Japanese Prints 1912-1989 . British Museum, 1994. ISBN 1-55859-871-5 .
• Helen Merritt: Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints. The Early Years. University of Honolulu Press, 1990. ISBN 0-8248-1200-X .

Web links

• A collection of Azechi's paintings

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Azechi is the family name, Umetarō the first name.