Edutainment > Joichi Hoshi - 1913-1979

Joichi Hoshi I

Hajime Namiki - Biography
Tree of Flowers - Hana no Ki, 1973
copyright Joichi Hoshi

Images of trees are a popular and frequent theme of modern Japanese woodblock print. We do not know if Joichi Hoshi was the first Japanese printmaker to pick up this subject on a broad term. For sure is that he began to specialize in woodblock prints depicting trees in the early 1970s and that it made him famous.

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Joichi Hoshi Returns from Taiwan

Joichi Hoshi had worked as a teacher in Taiwan for 13 years. With the end of world war II the Japanese occupation of Taiwan (Taiwan had come to Japan at the end of the Sino-Japanese war of 1894/95.) ended. Joichi Hoshi returned to Japan in 1946 and began to study oil painting at Musashino College of Fine Arts. When he graduated he was nearly 50 years old.

Self-Taught Woodblock Printmaker

Joichi Hoshi II

Kunio Kaneko - Biography
Evening, 1974
copyright Joichi Hoshi

Later he taught himself woodblock printmaking. For art friends who are familiar with Joichi Hoshi's works, this is a rather astonishing fact. The artist's work do not look at all technically challenged. Especially his later tree prints offer a rather intricate and elaborate level of technical craftsmanship, for instance the application of real gold or silver pigments.

Print Biennials

Joich Hoshi's international reputation began with his participation in several of the prestigious International Print Biennials of the 1950s and 1960s. He exhibited at the Tokyo International Print Biennials of 1959, 1961 and 1963 and at the International Print Biennal of Sao Paulo (Brazil) in 1967.

Joichi Hoshi - "Father" of Japanese Tree Prints

In the early 1970s the artist began to specialize in images of trees. This is what he is most famous for. Collectors usually pay a 4-digit dollar or Euro amount for a Joichi Hoshi tree print.

Japanese art prints showing trees have since then become a fashionable trend. Quite a few artists jumped on the bandwagon and created "tree prints". The trend continues together with a few more trendy subjects in contemporary Japanese printmaking liking old farmhouses or birds - preferably owls - in all shapes, styles and colors.

Each period in Japanese art printmaking seems to have its favorite genres - from kabuki prints in the Edo period to trees and old farmhouses for contemporary Japanese prints. Examples for artists who engaged in the tree genre are Hajime Namiki (born 1947), Kunio Kaneko (born 1949), Shogo Okamoto (1920-2001), Fumio Fujita (born 1933) or Souho Ikegami (born 1940).

Collections

Joichi Hoshi III

Contemporary Japanese Prints
High Treetop - Red, 1976
copyright Joichi Hoshi

The Tolmans write in their book Collecting Modern Japanese Prints Thenand Now that Henry Kissinger had bought a few prints by Joichi Hoshi during a trip to Tokyo.

• Tokyo Museum of Modern Art, Japan.
• Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA.
• National Museum of Far Eastern Art, Berlin, Germany.
• Art Institute of Chicago, IL, USA.
• Haifa Museum, Israel.
• Rockefeller Foundation, New York, USA.
• Cleveland Museum of Art, USA.

Dieter Wanczura
(August 2009)

Literature sources used for this Biography of Joichi Hoshi

• Helen Merritt and Nanako Yamada, "Guide to Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints: 1900-1975", published by University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, ISBN 0-8248-1732-X.
• Mary & Norman Tolman, Collecting Modern Japanese Prints Then & Now, Charles E.Tuttle Company, Tokyo, 1994.

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