Biography
Mária Mátyás (sometimes transliterated as Maria Matyas) is a contemporary printmaker based in Germany whose work in the international juried mokuhanga circuit is documented through her selection for the 2024 International Mokuhanga Conference at the Imadate Art Center in Echizen, Fukui Prefecture. Her print Morning at Kawaguchiko — a vertically oriented work in a slender 40 by 18 centimetre format, executed in mokuhanga (water-based woodblock) — was included in the juried international exhibition, and the title indicates an engagement with the landscape around Lake Kawaguchi on the Fuji northern flank, the area in which the MI-LAB Artist-in-Residence programme is based and through which a substantial portion of contemporary European mokuhanga practice has been routed since the 2010s. The slender, almost scroll-like proportion of the print and its dawn-light subject locate the work in the meditative landscape register of the contemporary revival rather than in the more decorative kachō-e tradition. Beyond the IMC2024 selection the publicly available record is thin. A confirmed birth year, the artist's specific German base, a formal art-school affiliation, an extended exhibition history and a museum-collection record have not been published in English-language sources, and the Hungarian-origin name is shared in the broader cultural record with a Hungarian operatic soprano (1925-2007) and several other unrelated figures; conservative cataloguing keeps her as the IMC2024-documented German-resident printmaker only. Her practice can be placed with reasonable confidence in the cohort of European mokuhanga makers — alongside Jeanette Jorristma, Patty Hudak, Lucy May Schofield, Kate MacDonagh and others — who have built their technical training through MI-LAB workshops, Awagami Factory programmes, and the European IMA regional network in Belgium and Germany (the latter active through the Mokublad / Mokuhanga Magic group in Belgium and through occasional German-language workshops at the Frankfurter Malakademie). She is best characterized at present as a working European mokuhanga printmaker whose entry into the international juried record has been established through the IMC selection mechanism, and whose individual career documentation outside the conference catalogue is still in the early stages of being published in available reference resources.
Key Facts
- Nationality
- 🇩🇪Germany
- Movement
- Contemporary Mokuhanga
- Works Indexed
- 1
Frequently Asked Questions
Mária Mátyás (sometimes transliterated as Maria Matyas) is a contemporary printmaker based in Germany whose work in the international juried mokuhanga circuit is documented through her selection for the 2024 International Mokuhanga Conference at the Imadate Art Center in Echizen, Fukui Prefecture. Her print Morning at Kawaguchiko — a vertically oriented work in a slender 40 by 18 centimetre format, executed in mokuhanga (water-based woodblock) — was included in the juried international exhibition, and the title indicates an engagement with the landscape around Lake Kawaguchi on the Fuji northern flank, the area in which the MI-LAB Artist-in-Residence programme is based and through which a substantial portion of contemporary European mokuhanga practice has been routed since the 2010s. The slender, almost scroll-like proportion of the print and its dawn-light subject locate the work in the meditative landscape register of the contemporary revival rather than in the more decorative kachō-e tradition. Beyond the IMC2024 selection the publicly available record is thin. A confirmed birth year, the artist's specific German base, a formal art-school affiliation, an extended exhibition history and a museum-collection record have not been published in English-language sources, and the Hungarian-origin name is shared in the broader cultural record with a Hungarian operatic soprano (1925-2007) and several other unrelated figures; conservative cataloguing keeps her as the IMC2024-documented German-resident printmaker only. Her practice can be placed with reasonable confidence in the cohort of European mokuhanga makers — alongside Jeanette Jorristma, Patty Hudak, Lucy May Schofield, Kate MacDonagh and others — who have built their technical training through MI-LAB workshops, Awagami Factory programmes, and the European IMA regional network in Belgium and Germany (the latter active through the Mokublad / Mokuhanga Magic group in Belgium and through occasional German-language workshops at the Frankfurter Malakademie). She is best characterized at present as a working European mokuhanga printmaker whose entry into the international juried record has been established through the IMC selection mechanism, and whose individual career documentation outside the conference catalogue is still in the early stages of being published in available reference resources.
Maria Matyas'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.
Maria Matyas is a contemporary printmaker working in the mokuhanga (Japanese woodblock) tradition. Their work contributes to the living tradition of Japanese woodblock printing. Prices for contemporary mokuhanga prints range from $100 for smaller works to $1,500 for major compositions. Most prints sell in the $180–$600 range. The global mokuhanga community has been growing, with increasing exhibition opportunities and collector interest. Contemporary mokuhanga represents an affordable entry point for collectors.