Kinoshita Tomio

Kinoshita Tomio (木下富雄, 1923–2014) was a Japanese sosaku-hanga printmaker born in Mie Prefecture. Largely self-taught, he worked as an oil painter before turning to woodblock printmaking in the mid-1950s, inspired by the print artist Hiratsuka Un'ichi, and went on to produce bold, psychologically charged prints of abstracted human figures and masks. He first exhibited with the Japan Print Association (Nihon Hanga Kyōkai) in 1957 and won its Association Prize in 1958, and he belonged to the Kokuga-kai (National Painting Association) from 1960. His prints entered public collections across Europe and the United States, including the British Museum, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. His work is characterized by powerful graphic forms, limited color palettes, and an exploration of identity and human suffering through the motif of the human face.

Kinoshita Tomio was active from 1923 to 2014. They were associated with the Sōsaku-hanga movement.

Kinoshita Tomio's work was shaped by the Sōsaku-hanga tradition in Japanese woodblock printmaking. Sōsaku-hanga: ## What is sōsaku-hanga? Sōsaku-hanga (創作版画, "creative prints") was a twentieth-century Japanese print movement defined by a single commitment: the artist must design, carve, and print every work alone.

Kinoshita Tomio's prints frequently feature abstract, figures, portraits, kabuki, children, landscapes.

Original prints by Kinoshita Tomio can be found in collections including Honolulu Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Minneapolis Institute of Art, mfa.