Tomoko Baba

Tomoko Baba (born 1969, Saitama Prefecture) is a Japanese intaglio printmaker working in etching, with a sustained practice based in Saitama. Her selection in the 68th CWAJ Print Show in 2025 with 'Le rideau,' a 50 × 40 cm etching from 2024, places her within the established cohort of mid-career Japanese intaglio printmakers circulating through the principal Tokyo-area juried exhibition channels.

Baba received her training at Joshibi University of Art and Design (女子美術大学), the principal Japanese women's art university, founded in 1900. Joshibi has been a major training ground for Japanese women printmakers across the twentieth century, and the printmaking program continues to be one of the principal entry points to professional Japanese print practice for women artists. Joshibi training carries a strong technical emphasis on intaglio and woodblock methods alongside training in design and applied arts.

Baba is a member of both the Japan Print Association (Nihon Hanga Kyokai) and the Print Society — two of the principal Japanese national organizations for working printmakers. JPA membership in particular is competitive and is the standard credential for working Japanese printmakers operating across all media; biennial exhibition rights at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum are the principal benefit. The Print Society (Hanga Gakkai) is an academic-association alternative, with membership including both working artists and researchers.

The title 'Le rideau' — French for 'the curtain' — situates Baba within a stylistic tradition of Japanese intaglio that uses French titling for prints, reflecting both the historical European-print influence on Japanese intaglio practice (which entered Japan through Western art education in the late nineteenth century) and the continuing cultural prestige of the French language in the Japanese fine print market. Curtain subjects — fabric draping, theater curtains, window curtains — are a recurring still-life motif in Japanese intaglio that lend themselves well to the etched-line technique through their sculpted-fold structure and tonal modeling.

The 50 × 40 cm sheet size is a moderate vertical etching plate. The CWAJ catalog assigned 'Le rideau' Print No. 008 in the 68th edition.

Further biographical detail beyond the CWAJ Print Show entry — Baba's broader exhibition history, gallery representation, museum holdings, and earlier work — is not currently surfaced through the public-facing English-language channels. Joshibi University alumni records, Japan Print Association exhibition records, and Saitama-area exhibition databases would be the principal next-step research targets for extending this bio.