Collection

Red Sun

FUJIMAKI, Yoshio

1934

Information

Title
Red Sun
Artist
FUJIMAKI, Yoshio View artist Information
Year
1934
Collection
Purchased
Medium
color woodcut, colored by hand and partly collaged
Size(cm)
41.7×27.9
Collection ID no.
P01080

Commentary

Fujimaki Yoshio, one of Japan’s leading printmakers in the early 1930s, was already gaining considerable attention in the printmaking world at the young age of 20, but his career was extremely short, just over four years. Fujimaki consistently focused on the city in the process of modernization, depicting scenes of Tokyo under reconstruction such as train stations, iron bridges, theaters, gas stations, office buildings and so forth. This work is thought to depict Hirokoji Boulevard in Ueno, looking down in the direction of Yushima from the Matsuzakaya department store. It is evocative of the moment just before sunset, which is deeply poignant when you consider that Fujimaki seems to have disappeared not long after this work was completed. Fujimaki worked with experimental techniques that deviated from conventional printmaking. Here, as well, we see the results of bold, improvisational compositional alteration, with the lower part of a printed image cut out, slid upward and glued back on. Meanwhile, the sunset that creates such a decisive impression of this work was not printed, but hand-colored in vermillion afterwards.

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