THE TORI COLLECTION
International Fine Art
Lithographs by Shuji Wako
Wako, Shuji
Born in Sendai, Japan in 1953. Graduated from Zokei University in 1977 and studied under Takeshi Hara, one of the Japan’s leading lithograph artists of the 20th century who Wako learned the mastery of technique creating faultless lithographic prints. His works
all depict true three dimensionality creating in a realistic style often utilizing the soft touches of silk fabric and the ancient symbol of children’s toys including origami, a paper folding of Japanese washi. Each print often combines images of rich Japanese fabrics, and traditional handicraft objects and occasionally a realistic accent of stamps and other objects. Wako delights in toys, games, puzzles and mazes, but his focus is not limited, and fanciful balloons, an ordinary air letter (with real stamps) and fanciful puzzling structures reminiscent of Escher are also depicted. His is a striking approach at finding aesthetic beauty in disparate subjects, and artfully combining the traditional with the contemporary. The artist characterizes his prints as “expressing the inner sense of Japanese tradition but seen through my modern eyes.” Wako is not a prolific artist, usually doing fewer than ten different editions each year. In 2000, he completed his one hundredth print.
Collections:
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia British Museum, Australia
Cincinnati Art Museum, Hamburg Museum of Arts and Crafts, Germany,
Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo
Singapore National Museum
Collection of Japanese Small Limited Edition Prints
by
Shinji Wako
Shinichi Nakazawa
Ryohei Tanaka
Clifton Kahru
Hiromitsu Takahashi
Please request for more images by an artist. We have a large collection of work by each artist.
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Etching by Ryohei Tanaka
Tanaka, Ryohei
Born in Osaka in 1933; Studied etching with Professor Furuno Yoshio; Member of the Japan Print Association
Ryohei Tanaka is widely considered one of the world's most important etching masters. The amalgam of thousands of minutely wrought needle strokes, each Tanaka plate bears witness to his unrelenting passion for his subject matter. Thatched-roof farmhouses, winding rural lanes, shadow-rich trees -- the dwellings and scenes of bucolic life form the hallmark of his corpus. So too does his mastery of space and perspective, his accomplishment of vastness through infinitesimal detail. Ever implied in his work is a human presence not divulged -- a viewer subsumed in ecological embrace with the scenes cast before her.
Collections:
Achenbach Foundation for the Graphic Arts, San Francisco
Boston Museum of Fine Art , Cincinnati Art Museum, Cleveland Art Museum
Fogg Museum, Harvard, Muse Honolulu Academy of Art, International Graphic Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Portland Museum of Art, Rockefeller Collection, Singapore National Museum