1926-1995
White Wall A.B.
(Shiro no kabe A, B)
zinc etching and woodblock on paper; signed and dated in the bottom right margin, Hodaka Yoshida '91, titled in Japanese on the bottom left margin, Shiro no kabe A, B, and numbered, 13/50, 1991
21 5/8 by 28 in., 55 by 71.2 cm
This print is from an ambitious series Hodaka produced based on photographs he had taken of various walls during his travels (a subject of interest to him for many years), in this case a wall around a house in the Kyoto-Nara area where he had spent his honeymoon in 1953. The print was made using a new technique Hodaka developed with a former student who had opened his own print shop in Tokyo. A zinc plate was produced from the photograph, and Hodaka carved eight to ten blocks for each print, from which multiple printings would overly the colors. Working together using a printing press, the zinc plate was printed with oils, and the woodblocks were printed with watercolor pigments, using the baren in some areas. The sheets of kozo paper (the highest quality hosho paper) were special ordered from a papermaker, Mr. Iwano, who was located in Fukui prefecture.
Provenance:
Yoshida Family Collection
References:
Eugene M. Skibbe, Yoshida Hodaka: Magic, Artifact, and Art, in A Japanese Legacy: Four Generations of Yoshida Family Artists, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 2002, pp. 110-120; p. 147, cat. no. 105-107 (three larger prints from the Wall series)
Hodaka Yoshida: Walls of Wonder, Mitaka City Gallery of Art, 2019, Tatsuo Matsuyama, pp. 13-16; Ayomi Yoshida, pp. 116-118; Satoko Tomita, pp. 126-129; p. 105, cat. no. 112 (larger print based on the same photograph)
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, accession no. M.2018.39
The Art Institute of Chicago, reference no. 2013.33
(inv. no. C-3569)
price: $5,000