A rare mystery sosaku-hanga print by Shiro Kasamatsu!
The print “Turkey” is included the book “Kasamatsu Shiro: Complete Woodblock Prints” (pictured here), but this variation “Pride in White” is not represented. Unlike “Turkey” which is pencil signed and numbered as are all Shiro Kasamatsu sosaku-hanga prints, this print is pencil signed / named / dated and sealed, but does not have any numbering. As can be seen in the comparison image, this print utilizes many of the same blocks, but omits a few design details (the flowers), has a different color scheme, and has placed the block signature in different locations.
The Woodblock Print
This oban-sized sosaku-hanga is in very fine condition. Beautiful color without any discolorations, clean verso, no evident toning. With the exception of a thin and missing partial margin on the right edge, otherwise clean and intact margins. Unable to tell if that missing margin is original to the paper as it seems like it is part deckling.
About the Artist
Shiro Kasamatsu (笠松 紫浪, 1898-1991) was a Japanese engraver and print maker trained and excelling in the Shin-Hanga and Sōsaku-Hanga styles of woodblock printing.
Shiro was born in Tokyo in 1898, and was apprenticed at the age of 13 to Kaburagi Kiyokata (1878–1973), a traditional master of bijin-ga. Kasamatsu however took an interest in landscape and was given the pseudonym “Shiro” by his teacher. Kasamatsu made woodblock prints for the publisher Shōzaburō Watanabe from 1919 until the late 1940s. All of the earlier 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. Kasamatsu began to partner with Unsodo in Kyoto from the 1950s and produced nearly 102 prints by 1960. He also began to print and publish on his own in the Sōsaku-Hanga style, producing nearly 80 Sōsaku-Hanga prints between 1955 and 1965 (pencil signed and numbered editions).
Shiro Kasamatsu is unique within modern Japanese woodblock printmakers in that he is equally well-regarded for both his shin-hanga and sosaku-hanga prints.
