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Edutainment > Articles on Art > Sosaku Hanga > Kanae Yamamoto 1882-1946

Kanae Yamamoto

Self-Portrait - 1915

Kanae Yamamoto was the founding father of the Japanese Sosaku Hanga art movement that came up at the beginning of the twentieth century. The Sosaku Hanga artists thrived for the Western ideal of creativity and at least in theory they postulated that the artist had to perform the whole process of creating a print by himself including the block carving and printing and not only the design.

Born Without a Silver Spoon

The grandfather of Kanae had been an attendant to the last Tokugawa Shogun and found himself among the impoverished class of samurai, noblemen and proponents of the old order. The last Shogun had been defeated by the forces supporting the Japanese emperor in the battle of Ueno of 1868.

His father tried to become a medical doctor, but died when he was still a young boy. His mother had to struggle hard to fend for herself and her son. Kanae Yamamoto began an apprenticeship of 5 years with an engraver and illustrator.

Yamamoto entered the Tokyo School of Fine Arts when he was twenty years old and graduated four years later in 1906. He financed his art training by freelance work as an illustrator.

The Grandfather of Sosaku Hanga

Kanae Yamamoto

Fisherman - 1904

In 1904 Kanae Yamamoto created what is considered to be historically the first Sosaku Hanga print, titled Gyofu - the image of a Japanese fisherman. Hakutei Ishii, an artist himself and an early promoter of the new "Creative Prints" movement, published this print in July 1904 in the magazine Myojo.

In 1907 Yamamoto and a growing number of Sosaku Hanga artists created their own magazine, Hosun, which means little thing in Japanese. It existed for only four years.

Paris - the Mecca of Western Art

In 1912 Kanae Yamamoto left Japan and went on a long journey by ship to Marseille in France and from there to Paris - at that time the uncontested center of Western art. The young artist wanted to study Western oil painting. An unhappy love with Mitsu Ishii, the younger sister of Hakutei Ishii gave this decision maybe a decisive kick. The Hakutei family had forbidden a marriage of Mitsu and Kanae.

Kanae stayed in France for four years until 1916. The artist had brought with him tools and materials to create prints under the same conditions as in Japan. He regularly sent his works home to Japan and his family and friends sold them under a subscription scheme, which had been launched to finance his stay in Europe.

The four years in France are considered to be his most prolific period as a print maker. Many prints show scenes and people from Brittany like Bathers of Brittany, Small Bay of Brittany, Bathing or Woman of Brittany.

Back to Japan Via Russia

Kanae Yamamoto

Spring in the French Countryside
Woodblock 1912-1913

The year 1916 was not ideal for a return to Japan. World War One was raging in Europe and the passage by ship through the Suez Canal was not possible. Kanae decided to go back to Japan via Moscow and by the Trans-Siberian Railway. The journey was an adventurous one via London, Norway, Sweden and Moscow. He stayed several weeks in Moscow where he experienced the beginning of the Russian revolution.

The journey back home lasted half a year - from the end of June until December 1916.

Children's Free Art and Farmer's Art Movement

Yamamoto had always been a bit of a political rebel. But while travelling through Russia he had caught the virus of Socialist utopia.

Back in Japan he devoted nearly all his time and energy in pursuing Socialist ideas. Kanae wanted to revolutionize the art education of children in Japan and founded the Japan Children's Free Painting Society. Another of his utopian projects was the Farmers' Art Movement. He had established a school where he held courses for the proletarian class in such crafts as weaving, embroidery, painting, wood carving.

It was no wonder that Yamamoto was on a collision course with authorities who watched his activities with suspicion.

The Kanae Yamamoto Museum in Ueda

The tragic thing about his obsession with his utopian projects was the neglecting of his own artistic creations. The two projects exhausted him so much that he hardly made any more prints after 1920 and only few oil paintings.

In 1942 he had a cerebral hemorrhage which left him partially paralyzed. He died in October 1946 at the age of sixty-four. Shortly before his death he destroyed the blocks of his prints with a hatchet. Only a handful of blocks that he had given to friends remained.

In 1962 the city of Ueda, where the artist had lived until 1935, opened The Kanae Yamamoto Museum in his honor. It has 1.800 items on display.

All images on this page by courtesy of Kanae Yamamoto Museum.

Literature sources used for this Kanae Yamamoto biography

• 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
• Helen Merritt, "Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints - The early years", published by University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1990, ISBN 0-8248-1200-X
• Oliver Statler, "Modern Japanese Prints: An Art Reborn", C. Tuttle, Tokyo, 1956, ISBN No. is 0-8048-0406-0

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Sosaku Hanga