Visions of Japan
Kawase Hasui's Masterpieces
Author:
Following on the success of the catalogue raisonné –
Kawase Hasui: The Complete Woodblock Prints – published by Hotei Publishing in 2003,
Visions of Japan: Kawase Hasui’s Masterpieces brings together in a single volume one hundred of the artist’s most celebrated prints. Fully illustrated, this publication includes annotated descriptions for each work, as well as two essays on Hasui’s life and work by Dr. Kendall H. Brown.
Kawase Hasui (1883-1957) is considered the foremost Japanese landscape print artist of the 20th century, and he is most closely associated with the pioneering Shin-hanga (New Prints) publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō (1885-1962). Hasui’s work became hugely popular, not only in his native Japan but also in the West, especially in the United States. His valuable contribution to the woodblock print medium was acknowledged in 1956, a year before his death, when he was honoured with the distinction of ‘Living National Treasure’
Kawase Hasui (1883-1957) is considered the foremost Japanese landscape print artist of the 20th century, and he is most closely associated with the pioneering Shin-hanga (New Prints) publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō (1885-1962). Hasui’s work became hugely popular, not only in his native Japan but also in the West, especially in the United States. His valuable contribution to the woodblock print medium was acknowledged in 1956, a year before his death, when he was honoured with the distinction of ‘Living National Treasure’
Kendall H. Brown is Associate Professor in the Department of Art at California State University, Long Beach, California, where he teaches the art of India, China and Japan. Following his research into sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Japanese painting and publications such as
The Politics of Reclusion: Painting and Power in Momoyama Japan (1997), his interests turned to the twenthieth century and to woodblock prints. His publications in this field include
Kawase Hasui: The Complete Woodblock Prints (2003), abridged in
Visions of Japan: Kawase Hasui’s Masterpieces (2004). Counted among his exhibition catalogues are
Taisho Chic: Japanese Modernity, Nostalgia and Deco (2002),
A Japanese Legacy: Four Generations of Yoshida Family Artists (2002),
Between Two Worlds: the Life and Art of Lilian May Miller (1998),
Shin hanga: New Prints in Modern Japan (1996) and
Light and Darkness: Women in Japanese Prints of Early Showa 1926-1945 (1996). He was also contributor to
Art of the Japanese Postcard (2004). He is currently writing a social history of Japanese gardens in North America.