Toshi Yoshida Abstract Prints

Impression B Color woodcut, 1959 Signed and dated lower right (see photo) Titled lower left (see photo) A trial proof, prior to the edition of 100, signed and numbered Condition: Excellent Image size: 14 1/2 x 9 3/4 inches Provenance: Estate of the artist by decent to his heirs "Printmaker and painter Toshi Yoshida was born on July 25, 1911, into the respected Yoshida family of artists of Tokyo, Japan. Father Hiroshi was a celebrated landscape painter and printmaker, and mother Fujio established herself as the first female Yoshida artist as well as an Abstract artist later in her career. Younger brother Hodaka was an Abstract printmaker whose style, completely separate from his family's historic traditional bent, later influenced Toshi. Hodaka's wife Chizuko would become a pioneering female Japanese artist whose own exploration of Surrealism and Abstraction challenged the status quo. Toshi, however, as the eldest sibling, was expected to follow in his father's footsteps, and from an early age he was trained by Hiroshi in his studio. Unable to attend formal schooling due to the polio-induced paralyzation of his leg, Toshi would instead help with his family's printmaking studio and go on sketching trips with Hiroshi. As he got older, these trips would include India and Southeast Asia, working from morning to night taking night trains to get from one destination to another. Among Toshi's favorite subjects were the animals he discovered along the way. However, these trips ended as Japan entered military dictatorship in the mid 1930s, and artists whose work showed signs of Western influence were barred from exhibiting. At this time, Toshi left Japan for China and Korea, where he would remain for the duration of the war. He stuck to patriotic themes to remain in business, and after the end of World War II, as Japan struggled to recover from wartime economic depression, he earned his living creating traditional Japanese woodcut landscapes...

Impression B Color woodcut, 1959 Signed and dated lower right (see photo) Titled lower left (see photo) A trial proof, prior to the edition of 100, signed and numbered Condition: Excellent Image size: 14 1/2 x 9 3/4 inches Provenance: Estate of the artist by decent to his heirs "Printmaker and painter Toshi Yoshida was born on July 25, 1911, into the respected Yoshida family of artists of Tokyo, Japan. Father Hiroshi was a celebrated landscape painter and printmaker, and mother Fujio established herself as the first female Yoshida artist as well as an Abstract artist later in her career. Younger brother Hodaka was an Abstract printmaker whose style, completely separate from his family's historic traditional bent, later influenced Toshi. Hodaka's wife Chizuko would become a pioneering female Japanese artist whose own exploration of Surrealism and Abstraction challenged the status quo. Toshi, however, as the eldest sibling, was expected to follow in his father's footsteps, and from an early age he was trained by Hiroshi in his studio. Unable to attend formal schooling due to the polio-induced paralyzation of his leg, Toshi would instead help with his family's printmaking studio and go on sketching trips with Hiroshi. As he got older, these trips would include India and Southeast Asia, working from morning to night taking night trains to get from one destination to another. Among Toshi's favorite subjects were the animals he discovered along the way. However, these trips ended as Japan entered military dictatorship in the mid 1930s, and artists whose work showed signs of Western influence were barred from exhibiting. At this time, Toshi left Japan for China and Korea, where he would remain for the duration of the war. He stuck to patriotic themes to remain in business, and after the end of World War II, as Japan struggled to recover from wartime economic depression, he earned his living creating traditional Japanese woodcut landscapes...