Prints and Multiples

PIERRE-AUGUSTE RENOR (1841 - 1919) SUR LA PLAGE, a BERNEVAL (D.: S. 5) Drypoint on laid paper. The plate was created in c. 1892. Plate 5 3/8 x 3 3/4". Sheet 11 1/4 x 10 1/8". This...

Hand signed and numbered. Edition of 150 prints. Excellent condition.

Coloured lithograph on Arches paper, edited in 1968. Limited edition of 300 copies, numbered as 280/300 in lower left corner. Hand signed by Pablo Picasso in pencil in the lower righ...

Artist: Jean-Michel Basquiat (after) Title: Untitled (Rinso) Portfolio: 1983/2001 Portfolio I Medium: 9 Color screenprint on paper Year: 2001 Edition: 43/85 Sheet Size: 40" x 40" Sig...

Boris Lovet-Lorski, Untitled (Portrait of an African Woman), lithograph, edition 250, 1929. Signed and numbered 13 in pencil. Number 13 of Volume 2, a series of 10 lithographs publis...

Dale Nichols, 'Partners', lithograph, edition 250, 1950. Signed in pencil. A fine, richly-inked impression, on cream wove paper; the full sheet with margins (7/8 to 1 5/8 inches); tw...

1641. Etching on cream wove paper, 5 1/16 x 7 11/16 inches (128 x 195 mm), narrow margins. Printed 19th century on a remainder which has a partially trimmed, printed image of a Virgi...

Alexander CALDER Les Travestis du Reel, 1979 Original vintage lithograph poster Printed in Atelier Arts-Litho Printed signature in the plate 82 x 57 cm (c. 32.2 x 22.4 in) Excelle...

Bold lithograph titled "Bread" by Kathe Kollwitz (German, 1867-1945). This piece is one of the Lithographic reproductions of the original lithographs, plate 2 from a series of 10, pr...

Hank Laventhol, American (1927 - 2001) - Plum, Year: Circa 1980, Medium: Aquatint Etching, signed and numbered in pencil, Edition: 300, AP XXXV, Image Size: 20 x 15.5 inches, Siz...

Faith Ringgold, one of America’s most celebrated artists, has built a profound body of work documenting the African-American experience. This signed, titled, dated, and numbered seri...

Baroque 17th century German fountain design Copper-line engraving, published in 1664 in Nuremberg. From 'Architectura Curiosa Nova' by George Andreas B...

Marc CHAGALL (1887-1985) Bible : Simeon, Angels and Red Birds, 1962 Lithograph (Mourlot workshop) Unsigned On Vellum 32.5 x 24 cm INFORMATION: Lithograph produced by Chagall in 196...

Medium: original lithograph. This lithograph is from the rare 1957 "Improvisations" portfolio, published by the Artists Equity Association of New York on the occasion of the 1957 Spr...

1937 original travel poster by Georges Fustier Genève. This beautifully composed Art Deco poster depicts Lake Geneva framed by tall pines and lush gardens, with sailboats gliding acr...

Vintage poster realized in 1981. Offset and lithograph. Very good condition.

'The Last Kiss', from Richard Heeps series, 'A Short History of Milan', featuring a traditional Italian street book kiosk. A Short History of Milan began in November 2018 for a spe...

This exquisite lithograph after Jean Cocteau (1889–1963), titled Mesure hermetique (Hermetic Measure), from the folio Taureaux, Lithographies de Jean Cocteau (Bulls, Lithographs by J...

Silverstoned, 2024 Gicleé print on Hahnemuhle Daguerre Canvas framed in Tasmanian Oak edition of 42 100 x 100 cm comes with hand-signed and numbered COA from the artist. Werner Bron...

David Shrigley, Be Yourself Just Be Yourself, 2025 22 colour screenprint with varnish overlay on Somerset Tub Sized 410 gsm paper 56 x 76 cm (22.04 x 29.92 in) Edition 27 of 125 ...

Etching on vélin de Rives BFK paper. Paper Size: 11.5 x 9 inches. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Notes: From the album, Lysistrata, 1934. Published by The Limited E...

Takashi Murakami "Bouquet in a basket" 2024 4 Colors Offset print, cold stamp and high gloss varnishing 23 3/5 × 23 3/5 in 60 × 60 cm Edition XX/300 Hand signed and numbered by the...

Henri BOUTET (1851 - 1919) Ballerina in the Stairs, 1897 Original lithograph (Champenois workshop) Printed signature in the plate On vellum, 40 x 31 cm (c. 16 x 12 in) INFORMATION:...

This Limited Edition abstract print, "Lollipops #2," by Sofie Swann measures 36" x 45" and is an edition of 95. Printed on canvas, this giclee ships framed in a white floater frame w...

A set of nine black and white photographs by Richard Heeps. They can be hung in a grid, or spaced out throughout your interior. Richard Heeps, primarily known as a colour photographe...

David Shrigley, The Elephant, 2023 Screenprint in colours on wove paper 56 x 76 cm (22 x 29 9/10 in) Edition 108 of 125 Hand-signed and numbered on the reverse David Shrigley B...

Paper Size: 25.25 x 15 inches ( 64.135 x 38.1 cm ) Image Size: 19.5 x 15.5 inches ( 49.53 x 39.37 cm ) Framed: No Condition: D: Heavy signs of wear, Torn, Damaged. SOLD AS IS. Pri...

The reproduction of Come Sunday by Romare Bearden is based on a piece he originally created in 1967. Come Sunday is a powerful work that reflects the significance of spirituality and...

David Shrigley, I Will Not Allow The Dark Skies To Affect Me, 2025 22 colour screenprint with varnish overlay on Somerset Tub Sized 410 gsm paper 56 x 76 cm (22.04 x 29.92 in) Edi...

This is a vintage exhibition poster for an Andy Warhol exhibition held at The Tate Gallery in London from February 17 to March 28, 1971. The poster features Andy Warhol's iconic ima...

Through The Ages by Toko Shinoda, black and white signed lithograph calligraphy 11/35 obituary published by CNN March 2021 Celebra...

Vintage, 1984, James Goodwin New York Gallery exhibition poster; signed, lower right, in pencil, 'R. Lichtenstein' for Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923-1997) and accompanied by certi...

Color lithograph, 1958. Signed by the artist in pencil, lower right. Numbered 19/50 in pencil, lower left. Printed by Mourlot, Paris Overall sheet dimension 24 x 16.5 inches, wit...

This vibrant mid-century travel poster advertising Aeroflot, the official Soviet airline, offers a cheerful invitation to visit Moscow, the beating heart of the USSR. Created around 1970, the composition reflects the optimism and modernism of Soviet graphic design during the Cold War era, when air travel was increasingly used as a symbol of national pride and progress. At the center of the poster is a stylized female figure in traditional Russian dress...

Artist: Basquiat, Jean Michel Title: Piano Lesson Series: Superhero Portfolio Date: 1982-1987/2022 Medium: Screenprint Unframed Dimensions: 40" x 40" Framed Dimensions: 46" x ...

This print by Robert Rauschenberg is part of an 8-piece portfolio published by The New York Graphic Society in 1983 and includes works from Red Grooms, Robert Indiana, Alex Katz, R.B...

'Tacsonia' Process print from Frederick William Hulme’s ‘Familiar Wild Flowers’, circa 1890. Hulme was known as a teacher and an amateur botanist. He was the Professor of Freehand ...

In October of 1991 Christo and his collaborator Jean-Claude constructed an installation in two valleys, in Japan, north of Tokyo and one in California, north of Los Angeles. 960 yell...

This limited edition print, created in 1955, is produced on thick, high-quality paper and is hand-numbered 32 out of 150 in pencil. It features a facsimile signature of the artist. T...

Artist: Salvador Dali (1904-1989) Title: Téléphone-homard cybernétique (Michler/Löpsinger 822-831; Field 75-13), Imaginations et Objets du Futur (Cybernetic lobster phone, Imaginatio...

The 1999 Roland Garros poster by Antonio Seguí is a vibrant and whimsical work that captures the lively spirit of the French Open through a playful and satirical lens. Seguí’s use of...

ROMARE BEARDEN 1970-1980 The Brooklyn Museum, September 26-November 29, 1981 Vintage 1981 Exhibition Poster "Jamming At The Savoy" (image from original 14" x 18" collage on board by ...

Artist: Roy Lichtenstein Title: Nude With Blue Hair Medium: Relief print on Rives BFK mold-made paper Date: 1994 Edition: 28/40 Sheet Size: 57 7/8" x 37 5/8" Image Size: 51 5/16" x 3...

Paper Size: 31.25 x 25.75 inches ( 79.375 x 65.405 cm ) Image Size: 24.5 x 24.5 inches ( 62.23 x 62.23 cm ) Framed: No Condition: A: Mint Additional Details: This poster by Ernest T...

This exquisite lithograph by Marc Chagall (1887–1985), titled Quai de Bercy (Bercy Quay), from the folio Derriere le miroir, No. 67–68, originates from the 1954 edition published by Maeght Editeur, Paris, and printed by Mourlot Freres, Paris, 1954. Quai de Bercy captures Chagall’s poetic vision of Paris as a dreamlike landscape where memory, color, and emotion converge. The work’s lyrical composition and radiant palette embody Chagall’s deep affection for the city that shaped his artistic identity, blending reality and reverie in perfect harmony. Executed as a lithograph on velin paper, this work measures 15 x 22 inches, with centerfold as issued. Unsigned and unnumbered as issued. The edition exemplifies the superb craftsmanship of Mourlot Freres, Paris. Artwork Details: Artist: Marc Chagall (1887–1985) Title: Quai de Bercy (Bercy Quay), from the folio Derriere le miroir, No. 67–68 Medium: Lithograph on velin paper Dimensions: 15 x 22 inches (38.1 x 55.88 cm), with centerfold as issued Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered as issued Date: 1954 Publisher: Maeght Editeur, Paris Printer: Mourlot Freres, Paris Catalogue raisonne reference: Cramer, Patrick, and Meret Meyer. Marc Chagall: Catalogue Raisonne des Livres Illustres. Patrick Cramer Editeur, 1995, illustration 24; Mourlot, Fernand, and Marc Chagall. Chagall Lithographe I: 1922–1957. Andre Sauret, 1960, illustration 93. Condition: Well preserved, consistent with age and medium Provenance: From the folio Derriere le miroir, No. 67–68, published by Maeght Editeur, Paris; printed by Mourlot Freres, Paris, 1954 Notes: On the occasion of the ‘Paris’ exhibition, Marc Chagall created for this triple issue of Derriere Le Miroir XII pages of Lithography. About the Publication: Derriere le miroir (Behind the Mirror) was one of the most important art publications of the 20th century, created and published by Maeght Editeur in Paris from 1946 to 1982. Founded by the visionary art dealer and publisher Aime Maeght, the series served as both an exhibition catalogue and a work of art in its own right, uniting original lithographs by leading modern and contemporary artists with critical essays, poetry, and design of the highest quality. Printed by master lithographers such as Mourlot Freres and Arte, Derriere le miroir became synonymous with the artistic vanguard of postwar Europe. Each issue was devoted to a single artist or theme and published to accompany exhibitions at the Galerie Maeght in Paris, featuring works by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Joan Miro, Marc Chagall, Alexander Calder, Fernand Leger, and Alberto Giacometti, among others. The publication reflected Maeght’s belief that art should be both accessible and elevated—an ideal realized through its luxurious production values, meticulous printing, and collaboration with the greatest creative minds of its time. About the Artist: Marc Chagall (1887–1985) was a Belarus-born French painter, printmaker, and designer whose visionary imagination, radiant color, and deeply poetic symbolism made him one of the most beloved and influential artists of the 20th century. Rooted in the imagery of his Jewish heritage and the memories of his childhood in Vitebsk, Chagall’s art wove together themes of faith, love, folklore, and fantasy with a dreamlike modern sensibility. His unique style—merging elements of Cubism, Fauvism, Expressionism, and Surrealism—defied categorization, transforming ordinary scenes into lyrical meditations on memory and emotion. Influenced by Russian icon painting, medieval religious art, and the modern innovations of artists such as Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Georges Braque, Chagall developed a profoundly personal visual language filled with floating figures, vibrant animals, musicians, and lovers that symbolized the transcendent power of imagination and love. During his early years in Paris, he became an integral part of the Ecole de Paris circle, forming friendships with Amedeo Modigliani, Fernand Leger, and Sonia Delaunay, and his creative spirit resonated with that of his peers and successors—Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti, Salvador Dali, Joan Miro, Wassily Kandinsky, Marcel Duchamp, and Man Ray—artists who, like Chagall, sought to push the boundaries of perception, emotion, and form. Over a prolific career that spanned painting, printmaking, stained glass, ceramics, and stage design, Chagall brought an unparalleled poetic sensibility to modern art, infusing even the most abstract subjects with human warmth and spiritual depth. His works are held in the most prestigious museums around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Centre Pompidou, the Tate, and the Guggenheim, where they continue to inspire generations of artists and collectors. The highest price ever paid for a Marc Chagall artwork is approximately 28.5 million USD, achieved in 2017 at Sotheby’s New York for Les Amoureux (1928). Marc Chagall Quai de Bercy 1954, Chagall Derriere le miroir No. 67–68, Chagall Mourlot lithograph, Chagall Maeght...

This exquisite lithograph after Andrew Wyeth (1917–2009), titled Brinton’s Mill, originates from the distinguished 1962 folio The Four Seasons: Paintings and Drawings by Andrew Wyeth. Published and printed by Art in America Company, Inc., New York, the edition exemplifies Wyeth’s intimate connection to the Brandywine Valley landscape. Brinton’s Mill, a historic gristmill near Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania—later purchased and restored by Wyeth and his wife Betsy—appears here bathed in the gentle light of seasonal transition, a motif of both personal and regional significance rendered with quiet reverence and precision. Executed on velin paper, this lithograph measures 17 x 13 inches (43.2 x 33 cm). As issued, it is unsigned and unnumbered, representing the folio’s authentic format. The Four Seasons series was conceived by the editors of Art in America in collaboration with Andrew and Betsy Wyeth, who selected drawings from the artist’s studio to illustrate the cycle of renewal and passage. Each image in the series embodies Wyeth’s profound sensitivity to mood, atmosphere, and the subtle interplay between man and nature. Artwork Details: Artist: After Andrew Wyeth (1917–2009) Title: Brinton’s Mill, from The Four Seasons, Paintings and Drawings by Andrew Wyeth, 1962 Medium: Lithograph on velin paper Dimensions: 17 x 13 inches (43.2 x 33 cm) Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued Date: 1962 Publisher: Art in America Company, Inc., New York Printer: Art in America Company, Inc., New York Condition: Well preserved, consistent with age and medium Provenance: From the 1962 folio The Four Seasons, Paintings and Drawings by Andrew Wyeth, published and printed by Art in America Company, Inc., New York Notes: Excerpted from the 1962 folio: "In 1962 the editors of Art in America proposed to Wyeth a portfolio of images of his recent dry-brush drawings. The artist and his wife suggested the theme, 'The Four Seasons,' because of the essential role played in his work by the cycle of the seasons. The drawings were selected by Andrew and Betsy Wyeth from works in the house and studio at Chadds Ford, supplemented by some owned by friends. With a few exceptions they had never been exhibited or reproduced. The plates were made directly from the originals. In these drawings Wyeth's loving concentration on the object is fully revealed. But as always in his work, this concern with the tangible is balanced by sensibility to mood, to the emotion arising from the actual. They are pervaded with a sense of the season—the exact time of year, the hour of the day, the quality of the light. To the truth and subtlety with which he captures these intangible factors, these drawings owe their poignant poetry." About the Artist: Andrew Wyeth (1917–2009) was an American visual artist and one of the best-known painters of the mid-20th century. Although he considered himself an abstractionist, Wyeth’s work is characterized by a meticulous realism imbued with psychological depth and atmosphere. He often painted the landscapes and people surrounding his homes in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and Cushing, Maine, creating an intimate record of American rural life. The son of the celebrated illustrator N. C. Wyeth, Andrew trained under his father before developing his own deeply personal visual language inspired by Winslow Homer, Henry David Thoreau, and King Vidor. His wife, Betsy Wyeth, was both his muse and career manager, while his son Jamie Wyeth continued the family’s artistic legacy. Among Wyeth’s best-known works is Christina’s World (1948), housed in the Museum of Modern Art, New York—a quintessential image of 20th-century American art. His other notable series include The Helga Pictures and his window studies, each reflecting a profound meditation on solitude, memory, and perception. Wyeth was the first painter to receive both the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal, and was elected to the French Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1980. In 2022, Andrew Wyeth's painting Day Dream sold for USD 23.29 million at Christie’s New York, setting a world record for the artist. Andrew Wyeth lithograph...

Artist: Sam Francis Title: Pink Venus Kiki Portfolio: 1¢ Life Medium: Lithograph Year: 1964 Edition Size: 2000 Frame Size: 20 5/8" x 28 3/4" Sheet Size: 16 1/8" x 22 1/4" Signature: ...

Lucio Fontana (1899-1968) - Concetto Spaziale Lithograph from 1975. Edition 371/575 (Photocopy of the colophone is included). Dimensions of work: 31 x 24 cm. Each copy of this li...

This exquisite lithograph by Marc Chagall (1887–1985), titled Vision de Paris (Vision of Paris), from Verve, Revue Artistique et Litteraire, Vol. VII, No. 27–28, originates from the ...

ABOUT THIS ARTIST: Lesley Anderson (b. 1986) is a Canadian painter living on the west coast of Canada. She uses a variety of methods and materials to c...

Medium: original etching. Printed on laid paper in 1919 and published in Berlin by Paul Cassirer. Plate size: 3 3/4 x 5 3/4 inches (98 x 147 mm). Signed in the plate (not by hand).

Joan Miró - Maravillas con variaciones acrósticas en el jardín de Miró XX Date of creation: 1975 Medium: Lithograph on Gvarro paper Edition: 1500 Size: 49,5 x 35,5 cm Condition: In v...

Tracey Emin Every Bodies Been There (signed twice), 1998 Lithograph on paper Underneath that existing plate signature, Tracey Emin has, exceptionally hand signed and dated the work f...

A black and white, large-scale surreal mythical landscape of an ocean voyage, with a snake wrapped around a clock, a ship, Venus sculpture, greek urns, and snakes, printed in black o...

ABOUT THIS PIECE: Color is the foundation of my work. My circles start as a mood or idea that eventually evolves into a colored circle. I am curious how different colours interact when they're placed next to each other. I experiment with intensity of colours and the different sensations colours evoke. Why a Circle? When I explore my fascination with this shape I discover that the circle represents all that is familiar and comforting. It is the shape of the rising sun, of a mother's nipple, of the iris of the eye, and of a full moon. I use the latest digital technology as a medium to create my circles. ABOUT THIS ARTIST: Ruth Adler is a Canadian artist whose mediums include paintings, works on paper, animated films and textiles. She is inspired by the city of Tel Aviv, music (she plays the harmonica) and her personal memories. Jim Kempner Fine Art...

This is a contemporary black and white photograph of Northern California Wild Mustangs. "They represent the ultimate expression of American freedom" 36 x 48 Archival paper and inks ...

Bernard Picart, 'The Deluge' from 'The Temple of the Muses', engraving, 1730. Signed in the plate and dated '1730' lower left. Titled in French, English, German, and Dutch. A superb...

This is an exclusive handprinted limited edition cyanotype. "Pacific Foamy Shoreline" is a handmade cyanotype print portraying a smooth wave reaching the shore. Details: + Title: Pa...

Colorful dots, lines and squares in bright blue, pink, green, lilac and yellow in wood grain form a totem against a lavender purple background. This jubilant take on Cubism features ...

Tableau, Japanese, limited edition lithograph, black, white, red, signed, number Shinoda's works have been collected by public galleries and museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Brooklyn Museum and Metropolitan Museum (all in New York City), the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, the British Museum in London, the Art Institute of Chicago, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., the Singapore Art Museum, the National Museum of Singapore, the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, Netherlands, the Albright–Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, the Cincinnati Art Museum, and the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut. New York Times Obituary, March 3, 2021 by Margalit Fox, Alex Traub contributed reporting. Toko Shinoda, one of the foremost Japanese artists of the 20th century, whose work married the ancient serenity of calligraphy with the modernist urgency of Abstract Expressionism, died on Monday at a hospital in Tokyo. She was 107. Her death was announced by her gallerist in the United States. A painter and printmaker, Ms. Shinoda attained international renown at midcentury and remained sought after by major museums and galleries worldwide for more than five decades. Her work has been exhibited at, among other places, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; the British Museum; and the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo. Private collectors include the Japanese imperial family. Writing about a 1998 exhibition of Ms. Shinoda’s work at a London gallery, the British newspaper The Independent called it “elegant, minimal and very, very composed,” adding, “Her roots as a calligrapher are clear, as are her connections with American art of the 1950s, but she is quite obviously a major artist in her own right.” As a painter, Ms. Shinoda worked primarily in sumi ink, a solid form of ink, made from soot pressed into sticks, that has been used in Asia for centuries. Rubbed on a wet stone to release their pigment, the sticks yield a subtle ink that, because it is quickly imbibed by paper, is strikingly ephemeral. The sumi artist must make each brush stroke with all due deliberation, as the nature of the medium precludes the possibility of reworking even a single line. “The color of the ink which is produced by this method is a very delicate one,” Ms. Shinoda told The Business Times of Singapore in 2014. “It is thus necessary to finish one’s work very quickly. So the composition must be determined in my mind before I pick up the brush. Then, as they say, the painting just falls off the brush.” Ms. Shinoda painted almost entirely in gradations of black, with occasional sepias and filmy blues. The ink sticks she used had been made for the great sumi artists of the past, some as long as 500 years ago. Her line — fluid, elegant, impeccably placed — owed much to calligraphy. She had been rigorously trained in that discipline from the time she was a child, but she had begun to push against its confines when she was still very young. Deeply influenced by American Abstract Expressionists like Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Robert Motherwell, whose work she encountered when she lived in New York in the late 1950s, Ms. Shinoda shunned representation. “If I have a definite idea, why paint it?,” she asked in an interview with United Press International in 1980. “It’s already understood and accepted. A stand of bamboo is more beautiful than a painting could be. Mount Fuji is more striking than any possible imitation.” Spare and quietly powerful, making abundant use of white space, Ms. Shinoda’s paintings are done on traditional Chinese and Japanese papers, or on backgrounds of gold, silver or platinum leaf. Often asymmetrical, they can overlay a stark geometric shape with the barest calligraphic strokes. The combined effect appears to catch and hold something evanescent — “as elusive as the memory of a pleasant scent or the movement of wind,” as she said in a 1996 interview. Ms. Shinoda’s work also included lithographs; three-dimensional pieces of wood and other materials; and murals in public spaces, including a series made for the Zojoji Temple in Tokyo. The fifth of seven children of a prosperous family, Ms. Shinoda was born on March 28, 1913, in Dalian, in Manchuria, where her father, Raijiro, managed a tobacco plant. Her mother, Joko, was a homemaker. The family returned to Japan when she was a baby, settling in Gifu, midway between Kyoto and Tokyo. One of her father’s uncles, a sculptor and calligrapher, had been an official seal carver to the Meiji emperor. He conveyed his love of art and poetry to Toko’s father, who in turn passed it to Toko. “My upbringing was a very traditional one, with relatives living with my parents,” she said in the U.P.I. interview. “In a scholarly atmosphere, I grew up knowing I wanted to make these things, to be an artist.” She began studying calligraphy at 6, learning, hour by hour, impeccable mastery over line. But by the time she was a teenager, she had begun to seek an artistic outlet that she felt calligraphy, with its centuries-old conventions, could not afford. “I got tired of it and decided to try my own style,” Ms. Shinoda told Time magazine in 1983. “My father always scolded me for being naughty and departing from the traditional way, but I had to do it.” Moving to Tokyo as a young adult, Ms. Shinoda became celebrated throughout Japan as one of the country’s finest living calligraphers, at the time a signal honor for a woman. She had her first solo show in 1940, at a Tokyo gallery. During World War II, when she forsook the city for the countryside near Mount Fuji, she earned her living as a calligrapher, but by the mid-1940s she had started experimenting with abstraction. In 1954 she began to achieve renown outside Japan with her inclusion in an exhibition of Japanese calligraphy at MoMA. In 1956, she traveled to New York. At the time, unmarried Japanese women could obtain only three-month visas for travel abroad, but through zealous renewals, Ms. Shinoda managed to remain for two years. She met many of the titans of Abstract Expressionism there, and she became captivated by their work. “When I was in New York in the ’50s, I was often included in activities with those artists, people like Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Motherwell and so forth,” she said in a 1998 interview with The Business Times. “They were very generous people, and I was often invited to visit their studios, where we would share ideas and opinions on our work. It was a great experience being together with people who shared common feelings.” During this period, Ms. Shinoda’s work was sold in the United States by Betty Parsons, the New York dealer who represented Pollock, Rothko and many of their contemporaries. Returning to Japan, Ms. Shinoda began to fuse calligraphy and the Expressionist aesthetic in earnest. The result was, in the words of The Plain Dealer of Cleveland in 1997, “an art of elegant simplicity and high drama.” Among Ms. Shinoda’s many honors, she was depicted, in 2016, on a Japanese postage stamp. She is the only Japanese artist to be so honored during her lifetime. No immediate family members survive. When she was quite young and determined to pursue a life making art, Ms. Shinoda made the decision to forgo the path that seemed foreordained for women of her generation. “I never married and have no children,” she told The Japan Times in 2017. “And I suppose that it sounds strange to think that my paintings are in place of them — of course they are not the same thing at all. But I do say, when paintings that I have made years ago are brought back into my consciousness, it seems like an old friend, or even a part of me, has come back to see me.” Works of a Woman's Hand Toko Shinoda bases new abstractions on ancient calligraphy Down a winding side street in the Aoyama district, western Tokyo. into a chunky white apartment building, then up in an elevator small enough to make a handful of Western passengers friends or enemies for life. At the end of a hall on the fourth floor, to the right, stands a plain brown door. To be admitted is to go through the looking glass. Sayonara today. Hello (Konichiwa) yesterday and tomorrow. Toko Shinoda, 70, lives and works here. She can be, when she chooses, on e of Japans foremost calligraphers, master of an intricate manner of writing that traces its lines back some 3,000 years to ancient China. She is also an avant-garde artist of international renown, whose abstract paintings and lithographs rest in museums around the world. These diverse talents do not seem to belong in the same epoch. Yet they have somehow converged in this diminutive woman who appears in her tiny foyer, offering slippers and ritual bows of greeting. She looks like someone too proper to chip a teacup, never mind revolutionize an old and hallowed art form She wears a blue and white kimono of her own design. Its patterns, she explains, are from Edo, meaning the period of the Tokugawa shoguns, before her city was renamed Tokyo in 1868. Her black hair is pulled back from her face, which is virtually free of lines and wrinkles. except for the gold-rimmed spectacles perched low on her nose (this visionary is apparently nearsighted). Shinoda could have stepped directly from a 19th century Meji print. Her surroundings convey a similar sense of old aesthetics, a retreat in the midst of a modern, frenetic city. The noise of the heavy traffic on a nearby elevated highway sounds at this height like distant surf. delicate bamboo shades filter the daylight. The color arrangement is restful: low ceilings of exposed wood, off-white walls, pastel rugs of blue, green and gray. It all feels so quintessentially Japanese that Shinoda’s opening remarks come as a surprise. She points out (through a translator) that she was not born in Japan at all but in Darien, Manchuria. Her father had been posted there to manage a tobacco company under the aegis of the occupying Japanese forces, which seized the region from Russia in 1905. She says,”People born in foreign places are very free in their thinking, not restricted” But since her family went back to Japan in 1915, when she was two, she could hardly remember much about a liberated childhood? She answers,”I think that if my mother had remained in Japan, she would have been an ordinary Japanese housewife. Going to Manchuria, she was able to assert her own personality, and that left its mark on me.” Evidently so. She wears her obi low on the hips, masculine style. The Porcelain aloofness she displays in photographs shatters in person. Her speech is forceful, her expression animated and her laugh both throaty and infectious. The hand she brings to her mouth to cover her amusement (a traditional female gesture of modesty) does not stand a chance. Her father also made a strong impression on the fifth of his seven children:”He came from a very old family, and he was quite strict in some ways and quite liberal in others.” He owned one of the first three bicycles ever imported to Japan and tinkered with it constantly He also decided that his little daughter would undergo rigorous training in a procrustean antiquity. “I was forced to study from age six on to learn calligraphy,” Shinoda says, The young girl dutifully memorized and copied the accepted models. In one sense, her father had pushed her in a promising direction, one of the few professional fields in Japan open to females. Included among the ancient terms that had evolved around calligraphy was onnade, or woman's writing. Heresy lay ahead. By the time she was 15, she had already been through nine years of intensive discipline, “I got tired of it and decided to try my own style. My father always scolded me for being naughty and departing from the traditional way, but I had to do it.” She produces a brush and a piece of paper to demonstrate the nature of her rebellion. “This is kawa, the accepted calligraphic character for river,” she says, deftly sketching three short vertical strokes. “But I wanted to use more than three lines to show the force of the river.” Her brush flows across the white page, leaving a recognizable river behind, also flowing.” The simple kawa in the traditional language was not enough for me. I wanted to find a new symbol to express the word river.” Her conviction grew that ink could convey the ineffable, the feeling, "as she says, of wind blowing softly.” Another demonstration. She goes to the sliding wooden door of an anteroom and disappears in back of it; the only trace of her is a triangular swatch of the right sleeve of her kimono, which she has arranged for that purpose. A realization dawns. The task of this artist is to paint that three sided pattern so that the invisible woman attached to it will be manifest to all viewers. Gen, painted especially for TIME, shows Shinoda’s theory in practice. She calls the work “my conception of Japan in visual terms.” A dark swath at the left, punctuated by red, stands for history. In the center sits a Chinese character gen, which means in the present or actuality. A blank pattern at the right suggests an unknown future. Once out of school, Shinoda struck off on a path significantly at odds with her culture. She recognized marriage for what it could mean to her career (“a restriction”) and decided against it. There was a living to be earned by doing traditional calligraphy:she used her free time to paint her variations. In 1940 a Tokyo gallery exhibited her work. (Fourteen years would pass before she got a second show.)War came, and bad times for nearly everyone, including the aspiring artist , who retreated to a rural area near Mount Fuji and traded her kimonos for eggs. In 1954 Shinoda’s work was included in a group exhibit at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art. Two years later, she overcame bureaucratic obstacles to visit the U.S.. Unmarried Japanese women are allowed visas for only three months, patiently applying for two-month extensions, one at a time, Shinoda managed to travel the country for two years. She pulls out a scrapbook from this period. Leafing through it, she suddenly raises a hand and touches her cheek:”How young I looked!” An inspection is called for. The woman in the grainy, yellowing newspaper photograph could easily be the on e sitting in this room. Told this, she nods and smiles. No translation necessary. Her sojourn in the U.S. proved to be crucial in the recognition and development of Shinoda’s art. Celebrities such as actor Charles Laughton and John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet bought her paintings and spread the good word. She also saw the works of the abstract expressionists, then the rage of the New York City art world, and realized that these Western artists, coming out of an utterly different tradition, were struggling toward the same goal that had obsessed her. Once she was back home, her work slowly made her famous. Although Shinoda has used many materials (fabric, stainless steel, ceramics, cement), brush and ink remain her principal means of expression. She had said, “As long as I am devoted to the creation of new forms, I can draw even with muddy water.” Fortunately, she does not have to. She points with evident pride to her ink stone, a velvety black slab of rock, with an indented basin, that is roughly a foot across and two feet long. It is more than 300 years old. Every working morning, Shinoda pours about a third of a pint of water into it, then selects an ink stick from her extensive collection, some dating back to China’s Ming dynasty. Pressing stick against stone, she begins rubbing. Slowly, the dried ink dissolves in the water and becomes ready for the brush. So two batches of sumi (India ink) are exactly alike; something old, something new. She uses color sparingly. Her clear preference is black and all its gradations. “In some paintings, sumi expresses blue better than blue.” It is time to go downstairs to the living quarters. A niece, divorced and her daughter,10,stay here with Shinoda; the artist who felt forced to renounce family and domesticity at the outset of her career seems welcome to it now. Sake is offered, poured into small cedar boxes and happily accepted. Hold carefully. Drink from a corner. Ambrosial. And just right for the surroundings and the hostess. A conservative renegade; a liberal traditionalist; a woman steeped in the male-dominated conventions that she consistently opposed. Her trail blazing accomplishments are analogous to Picasso’s. When she says goodbye, she bows. --by Paul Gray...