HANGA, the print making in Japan was given a position as an artistic work in the Modern on the principles of self-drawn, self-carved and self-printed. Yet on the other hand, it stimulated people's creativity gaining in popularity as an accessible expressive means. This exhibition explores the history of print making from the origin as a print-technology to the various expressions at out time.

The show begins from a large variety of printed pieces in the Meiji era, which cultivated the print as art in the Modern. YAMAMOTO Kanae's Fisherman in the magazine "Myojo" which is considered to be the origin of Sosaku-hanga (the creative prints movement), advocating the principles of self-drawn, self-carved and self-printed, or the experiments from the end of Meiji era to the beginning of Taisho era such as the art magazine "Hosun" by YAMAMOTO Kanae and ISHII Hakutei are also important introductions of the show.

The range of the exhibits is quite wide: The Nihon Sosaku-hanga Kyokai (Japan creative print art association) which was organized in 1918 (Taisho 7) and held the first exhibition in the next year, and one of the founding members ONCHI Koshiro exerted themselves for the popularity of prints. Their works were some kinds of aspiration for those who tried to create prints. The mimeographs by engineers in local printing studios showed a unique development in Japan. Furthermore, the success of print artists in the international print competitions after the War, brought the medium all the more various expressions and possibilities.

*image(left)
Masanari Murai
The Black Sun, 1962
Lithograph on Paper
courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art, Wakayama