Edutainment > Ono Tadashige - 1909-1990

Clock Tower in Moscow

Ono Tadashige is a leading representative of Japanese postwar printmaking. His art style was strongly influenced by the movement of social-critical prints that was wide-spread in the 1920s and 1930s in Germany, Russia, China and also in Japan as the "proletarian and farmers art movement".

Bibliography

Ono Tadashige had studied art at the Hongo Art Institute from 1924 until 1927. In 1941 he graduated from the department of Japanese and Chinese languages of Hosei University Higher Normal School. At a young age he became an active member of the sosaku hanga and the proletarian art movement.

After the end of the Pacific War the artist's International career began. His prints were accepted for several of the International Print Biennales - 1957 in Tokyo and 1961 in Moscow. Ono Tadashige became a visiting professor at a couple of Japanese universities - Tokyo University of Fine Arts, Aichi University of Fine Arts, Hiroshima University, and Utsunomiya University.

The artist published several books on modern Japanese hanga and one book on Chinese prints.

Prints - Style and Technique

copyright Ono Tadashige

The early prints made by the artist, meaning before worldwar II, were deeply rooted in the social-critical movement of German expressionism and the art trend dominating in Russia and among critical, intellectual circles in China (Luxun).

At the same time, there was a similar art movement in Japan, led and nurtured by Kanae Yamamoto (1882-1946), who is considered the founding father of the sosaku hanga movement. When Kanae Yamamoto tried to return from Europe to Japan in 1916, while world war I was raging, he stopped in Moscow for several weeks, and experienced the beginning of the Russian revolution. Back in Japan, Kanae Yamamoto pursued utopian socialist ideas by founding such projects like "Japan Children's Free Painting Society" or the "Farmers' Art Movement".

This was the background which had formed the character and art style of Ono Tadashige. After the end of the Pacific War, Ono Tadashige's enthusiasm for the ideas of proletarian revolution had lessened, but the way he saw his environment had not changed much. His favorite subjects were town views of the industrialized areas - factories with tall chimneys, canals with tug-boats. The artist does not show a beautified Japan, but the Japan of industrialized cities.

Ono Tadashige's technique and style is congruent with his subjects. The colors used, are somber with much use of dark brown and black. And while a printmaker usually starts to print the light colors and then adds or overprints the dark colors, Ono Tadashige did it the other way round. He began the printing process by darkening the paper with black ink. The light and white colors added on top of the black background gave them a kind of opaque effect, which is so typical for the art prints of Ono Tadashige.

Although Ono Tadashige had never tried to make "pleasing" prints, today his works are sold for rather high prices.

Literature sources

• 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

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