Biography
Maruyama Hiroshi (丸山浩司, born 1953) is a Japanese contemporary printmaker whose mature practice consists of large-format abstract woodblock prints organized around horizontal bands of saturated colour set against dark grounds, and whose career has been continuously visible through the Yoseido Gallery in Tokyo's Ginza district since the late 1970s. He was born in 1953 in Tochigi Prefecture, north of Tokyo, and trained at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts (Tōkyō Bijutsu Gakkō), the predecessor of present-day Tokyo University of the Arts. His exhibition record begins immediately after graduation: he participated in the CWAJ (College Women's Association of Japan) Print Show — the principal annual juried exhibition of contemporary Japanese prints held in Tokyo since 1956 — across the period 1977 through 1981, and his work was included in the eleventh Ljubljana International Print Biennial in 1978, one of the major international print exhibitions of the Cold War period and the entry point to the European print biennial circuit for a generation of Japanese practitioners. He was elected to membership in the Nihon Hanga Kyōkai (Japan Print Association) in 1980, the principal national printmaker's association in Japan, and he has been represented continuously by Yoseido Gallery in Tokyo, the Ginza print gallery founded in 1953 that has functioned across the post-war period as one of the principal commercial venues for contemporary Japanese prints. He has also had solo exhibitions and group shows at Nichido Gallery, the senior Ginza gallery founded in 1928 that has remained a presence on the contemporary art scene. His mature signature is the Midnight Blue series, in which wide horizontal bands of intricately printed colour run across a deep blue or black ground; the bands carry minute internal variation produced by overlapping block impressions and by careful management of brush load and pigment dilution. The bands read at distance as flat fields, and at close range as a dense, almost atmospheric surface, in a manner that aligns the work with the colour-field side of the post-Onchi Kōshirō sōsaku-hanga tradition while remaining firmly within the woodblock idiom rather than crossing over into silkscreen or lithography. The Art Platform Japan dictionary entry catalogues him under the Maruyama Hiroshi name in its directory of currently active artists, and the Artelino reference page maintains the standard biographical data. He is regularly cited alongside Noda Tetsuya and Kawachi Shigeyuki as a representative figure of the post-war abstract Japanese print generation that emerged in the late 1970s, although his international auction profile is more modest than those of his better-known peers. Public-collection holdings have not been comprehensively published in English; the principal documentary record is the long-running Yoseido Gallery catalogue and the CWAJ and Nihon Hanga Kyōkai exhibition lists, supplemented by the Monty's auction record in Australia that has handled individual Midnight Blue impressions on the secondary market.
Key Facts
- Active Period
- 1953
- Nationality
- 🇯🇵Japan
- Movement
- Contemporary Mokuhanga
- Subjects
- GardensTreesLandscapes
- Works Indexed
- 3
Frequently Asked Questions
Maruyama Hiroshi (丸山浩司, born 1953) is a Japanese contemporary printmaker whose mature practice consists of large-format abstract woodblock prints organized around horizontal bands of saturated colour set against dark grounds, and whose career has been continuously visible through the Yoseido Gallery in Tokyo's Ginza district since the late 1970s. He was born in 1953 in Tochigi Prefecture, north of Tokyo, and trained at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts (Tōkyō Bijutsu Gakkō), the predecessor of present-day Tokyo University of the Arts. His exhibition record begins immediately after graduation: he participated in the CWAJ (College Women's Association of Japan) Print Show — the principal annual juried exhibition of contemporary Japanese prints held in Tokyo since 1956 — across the period 1977 through 1981, and his work was included in the eleventh Ljubljana International Print Biennial in 1978, one of the major international print exhibitions of the Cold War period and the entry point to the European print biennial circuit for a generation of Japanese practitioners. He was elected to membership in the Nihon Hanga Kyōkai (Japan Print Association) in 1980, the principal national printmaker's association in Japan, and he has been represented continuously by Yoseido Gallery in Tokyo, the Ginza print gallery founded in 1953 that has functioned across the post-war period as one of the principal commercial venues for contemporary Japanese prints. He has also had solo exhibitions and group shows at Nichido Gallery, the senior Ginza gallery founded in 1928 that has remained a presence on the contemporary art scene. His mature signature is the Midnight Blue series, in which wide horizontal bands of intricately printed colour run across a deep blue or black ground; the bands carry minute internal variation produced by overlapping block impressions and by careful management of brush load and pigment dilution. The bands read at distance as flat fields, and at close range as a dense, almost atmospheric surface, in a manner that aligns the work with the colour-field side of the post-Onchi Kōshirō sōsaku-hanga tradition while remaining firmly within the woodblock idiom rather than crossing over into silkscreen or lithography. The Art Platform Japan dictionary entry catalogues him under the Maruyama Hiroshi name in its directory of currently active artists, and the Artelino reference page maintains the standard biographical data. He is regularly cited alongside Noda Tetsuya and Kawachi Shigeyuki as a representative figure of the post-war abstract Japanese print generation that emerged in the late 1970s, although his international auction profile is more modest than those of his better-known peers. Public-collection holdings have not been comprehensively published in English; the principal documentary record is the long-running Yoseido Gallery catalogue and the CWAJ and Nihon Hanga Kyōkai exhibition lists, supplemented by the Monty's auction record in Australia that has handled individual Midnight Blue impressions on the secondary market.
Maruyama Hiroshi was active born in 1953. They were associated with the Contemporary Mokuhanga movement.
Maruyama Hiroshi's work was shaped by the Contemporary Mokuhanga tradition in Japanese woodblock printmaking. Contemporary Mokuhanga: Contemporary mokuhanga (literally "wood-block print") encompasses artists working from approximately 1970 to the present who continue or reinvent traditional Japanese woodblock printing techniques.
Maruyama Hiroshi's prints frequently feature gardens, trees, landscapes.
Original prints by Maruyama Hiroshi can be found in collections including ukiyo-e.org, Museum of Fine Arts.
Maruyama Hiroshi is a contemporary printmaker contributing to the ongoing tradition of woodblock printing. Contemporary prints offer collectors an affordable entry point into Japanese printmaking. Prices range from $100 for smaller works to $1,500 for major compositions. Most prints sell in the $200–$600 range. The contemporary printmaking scene is active and international, with artists exhibiting at galleries, art fairs, and print biennials worldwide.
