A beautiful print by Shiro Kasamatsu while publishing with Unsodo, this is a first edition printing of “Inamuragasaki Point, Kamakura” depicting two parents with their young child walking along the shoreline in the moonlight. A lesser-seen print, this one seems to have been printed in a variety of colorings, some leaning towards black and white, others with a significant amount of blue/green. A dynamic print, powerful in its contrast and composition.
The Woodblock Print
This oban-sized woodblock is in excellent condition; rich, clean contrasting tones compliment a powerful composition. A top and bottom deckled edges. First edition. A clean verso and clean and intact margins. A small tear in the left margin has been professionally repaired.
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.
