Maeda Masao

Maeda Masao (前田政雄, 1904-1974) was a printmaker of the sōsaku-hanga, or creative-print, movement — an artist who designed, carved, and printed his own blocks and who held to that self-reliant practice throughout his career. Born in December 1904 in Hakodate, on the northern island of Hokkaido, he came to printmaking by an indirect route and matured into one of the committed members of the creative-print circle that gathered around Onchi Kōshirō in prewar Tokyo.

Maeda began as a painter rather than a printmaker. After moving to Tokyo he enrolled at the Kawabata Painting School and studied Western-style (yōga) oil painting under Umehara Ryūzaburō. His turn toward woodblock came through his association with Hiratsuka Un'ichi, a leader of the creative-print movement whom he met in 1923, and through the Yoyogi group of print artists who gathered at Hiratsuka's home in the 1930s. By 1940 he had set aside oils and was working solely as a printmaker.

Unlike the shin-hanga designers who handed their drawings to a publisher's professional carvers and printers, Maeda worked in the sōsaku-hanga manner, cutting and pulling his own blocks so that every stage of a print bore the mark of his own hand. He joined the Ichimoku-kai (First Thursday Society), the circle led by Onchi Kōshirō, and contributed to the collaborative portfolios of the movement, among them the series One Hundred New Views of Japan (1940).

Landscape was the heart of his art. His prints of his native Hokkaido and its snow-bound northern scenery are among his most admired works, though he was not confined to the north: he also depicted the gates and scenery of old Edo and produced accomplished mountain views. Across these subjects his prints carry a quiet, contemplative mood, and his landscapes in particular are widely regarded as his strongest achievement.

Maeda died on 27 March 1974. His prints are held in Japanese museum collections and continue to circulate among collectors drawn to the sōsaku-hanga landscape tradition, where his Hokkaido and mountain compositions attract particular attention.