Kawase Hasui

1883-1957

Collection of the Theater Photo Album: Vol. 5 (4 issues)
(Engei shashin cho: dai go maki)

each with lithograph covers and frontispieces by various artists; the collection includes: March, May, and November issue with cover by Kawase Hasui and frontispiece by Matsuda Seifu, and December issue with cover and frontispiece by Kawase Hasui, 1926

each magazine approximately 8 3/4 by 11 3/4 in., 22.3 by 30 cm

Each frontispiece is numbered within the series Sanju-rokunin kashu (Collection of Thirty-six Anthologies.) Volume 5 includes 12 issues that starts with sono jusan (no.13). The actors and their roles include: March cover with actor Ichimura Uzaemon as Sukeroku, frontispiece with Onoe Eizaburo as Asazuma; May cover with actor Nakamura Kichiemon as Ono no Tofu, frontispiece with Morita Kanya as Soka Juro; November cover with actor Nakamura Fukusuke as Onatsu Kyoran, frontispiece with Ichikawa Chusha as Matsuomaru; and December cover with actor Sawamura Sojuro as Chushin, frontispiece with Bando Shucho as Oseki.

During a period which began in late 1925 through 1927, Hasui broke away from the landscape format which had become his specialty and produced designs for the kabuki magazine Engei Shashincho (Theater Photo Album), sometimes producing both the cover and frontispiece for an issue, other times one or the other along with designs by contemporaries such as Natori Shunsen (1886-1960), the artist who specialized in kabuki subjects in the circle of publisher Watanabe Shozaburo (1885-1962).

References:
Kendall Brown, Water and Shadow: Kawase Hasui and Japanese Landscape Prints, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 2014, p. 11, cat. III.19 (Onoe Kikunosuke II as Young Kamuro, Tayori, cover illustration for Engei shashincho, March 1927)

(inv. no. C-3239b)

price: $1,000