Shin Hanga

by Ito Shinsui

Shin hanga literally means New Prints. It was an art movement for a new style of Japanese prints from about 1910 until ca. 1960. Shin hanga took the art of ukiyo-e to a new renaissance.

The shin hanga movement integrated Western elements without giving up the old values of Japanese, traditional woodblock prints. Instead of blindly imitating Western art styles, the new movement concentrated on traditional subjects like landscapes, beautiful women and actor portraits. Inspired by European Impressionism the artists introduced the effects of light and the expression of individual moods. The result was a technically superb and compelling new style of Japanese prints.

The Role of Watanabe Shozaburo

The initiator of shin hanga was not one of the artists, but a publisher with the name of Watanabe Shozaburo (1885-1962). He gathered a group of poor artists around him and gave them commissions. Watanabe had a good business sense and targeted the export market, mainly the US and the European market. And it worked! The Westerners loved the New Prints and also the Japanese discovered the charm of shin hanga by and by.

The best known artists working with Watanabe were Hasui Kawase, Koson Ohara, Shunsen Natori and Shinsui Ito. Other important artists outside the Watanabe circle, are Hiroshi Yoshida and Goyo Hashiguchi. There are more well known and lesser known artists who created the most wonderful prints. Shin hanga is a field that still has something to discover!

Goyo Hashiguchi 1880-1921

by Hashiguchi Goyo, 1915

Goyo Hashiguchi was born as the grandson of a samurai in Kagoshima City in the province of Kyushu. He had studied Western art at the Tokyo Academy of Fine Arts. Goyo Hashiguchi was extremely gifted and graduated as best student. In his first jobs he worked on several art projects - among others a series of reproductions of old ukiyo-e masters. In 1915 he produced his first print in hanga style - Woman at the bath. It was published by Watanabe in 1915. Unfortunately Goyo Hashiguchi died at the age of 41 of meningitis. Before his death, Goyo Hashiguchi had created and published another thirteen prints under his own supervision. After his death seven more prints were published by his heirs. They had been produced after designs of Goyo or by finishing partially completed blocks left by the artist.

Goyo Hashiguchi had all the talents of becoming one of the greatest masters in the history of Japanese print art. It is a tragedy that he started with printmaking so late and passed away so early.

Hasui Kawase 1883-1957

Hasui Kawase joined the shin hanga group in 1919. He designed mainly landscape subjects. His prints conserve the traditional style more than other artists. Best known are Hasui's famous night-time and snow-fall scenes.

In 1956, one year before his death, Hasui Kawase was declared a Living National Treasure by the Japanese government. He was the first person to receive this outstanding honor.

Hiroshi Yoshida 1876-1950

Daido Gate in Pyeonyang in Korea , 1937

Do not be surprised to see a print by Hiroshi Yoshida with a Indian elephant or a Swiss mountain village. Hiroshi Yoshida liked traveling. He was a cosmopolitan artist. At the end of his life Hiroshi Yoshida planned a series One Hundred Views of the World. Unfortunately he died before he could start this ambitious project.

Hiroshi Yoshida designed mainly landscape prints. He was a master of juggling with colors and light. Some of his prints show the same subject at different times of the day or at a different season of the year. The French impressionist Claude Monet had made the same kind of artistic experiments in the nineteenth century.

Koson Ohara 1877-1945

Koson Ohara had started as a painter. His first prints were illustrations of the Russo-Japanese war. At that time ukiyo-e printmakers had lost an essential source of income. Newspaper illustrations in the traditional print style were more and more replaced by photographs.

Koson Ohara created mainly designs of natural subjects - birds and other animals in a masterly manner. His works were exported in large numbers into the USA where his designs were well accepted. In 1911, Koson changed his name to Shoson. You may also find the spelling Hoson.

Kotondo Torii 1900-1976

Kotondo Torii was adopted into the famed Torii family that worked in ukiyo-e for several generations. Following an old tradition of using artist names, Kotondo called himself Torii VII. Kotondo Torii made only 21 prints in his life - all images of beautiful women.

Shunsen Natori 1886-1960

Shunsen Natori is the great master of modern actor prints. He had started as a painter, but was persuaded by Watanabe to try woodblock printmaking. Today Shunsen Natori prints are rare and expensive.

Shunsen Natori's life ended in a most tragic way. His daughter had died of pneumonia at the age of twenty-two. Two years later, he and his wife committed suicide by poison at their daughter's grave.

Shinsui Ito 1898-1972

Shinsui Ito was one of the leading figures of the shin hanga movement. He had learned printmaking as an apprentice from an early age on. Later he studied art under Kaburaki Kiyokata. He collaborated with Watanabe for 25 years. In 1952 he was appointed to the status of an intangible living treasure by the Japanese government.

Toshi Yoshida 1911-1995

Toshi Yoshida was the eldest son of Yoshida Hiroshi. He continued the style of his father without becoming repetitive. Toshi Yoshida had inherited not only his father's gift as an artist, but also the passion for traveling. After his father's death in 1950, Toshi Yoshida experimented with abstract art. But after a while he returned to his favorite subjects of scenic landscapes and animals.

Collecting Shin Hanga

by Natori Shunsen, 1928

Shin hanga tend to be expensive. Demand is high, mainly in the US market.

In the upper range are prints by Goyo Hashiguchi, Natori Shunsen or Kotondo Torii are very expensive - in the range of several thousand dollars.

Prices for Hasui Kawase or Hiroshi Yoshida prints are ranging somewhere in the middle, unless they are early printings pulled before world war II. Prices vary considerably on whether it is an early or later edition. Prints published before the great earthquake of 1923 have extremely high prices. In the aftermath of the earthquake huge fires raged. Watanabe's store was destroyed and with it all original blocks.

If your art budget is limited, you need not turn away from shin hanga. There are many excellent artists, well known like Toshi Yoshida or less-known like Sadanobu Hasegawa III (1881-1962) or Tsuchiya Koitsu (1870-1949), whose works are still available for reasonable prices.

Shin hanga on the Internet

The Shin Hanga Skull & Bones Society - group of collectors

Literature sources used for this article about shin hanga

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
The Female Image - 20th century prints of Japanese beauties, ABE PUBLISHING LTD., Tokyo & Hotei Publishing Leiden, ISBN 90-74822-20-7

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