Shiro Kasamatsu

Shiro Kasamatsu (笠松紫浪, 1898-1991) worked across both the shin-hanga and sosaku-hanga traditions during a career that stretched over seven decades, producing approximately 280 print designs distinguished by their atmospheric sensitivity to rain, snow, and night.

Born on January 11, 1898, in Asakusa, Tokyo, Kasamatsu entered the studio of Kaburagi Kiyokata at thirteen. Kiyokata's atelier was a training ground for the shin-hanga generation: Kasamatsu's fellow students included Kawase Hasui and Ito Shinsui. Though Kiyokata specialized in bijin-ga, Kasamatsu gravitated toward landscape and never departed from it. He exhibited paintings at the Bunten and Teiten government shows while still a student.

His printmaking career began in 1919 when Kiyokata introduced him to publisher Watanabe Shozaburo. His first commissioned design, "Windy Day in Early Summer," launched a partnership that would define his shin-hanga period. The Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 destroyed Watanabe's workshop and nearly all pre-earthquake woodblocks, making Kasamatsu's earliest prints extremely rare. When the partnership resumed in the 1930s, he entered his most productive phase, creating more than fifty designs for Watanabe. "Shinobazu Pond" (1932) generated such sustained demand among Western collectors that it was reprinted for decades. "Yomeimon Gate, Nikko, in Light Rain" (1935) demonstrated his gift for suggesting atmosphere with extraordinary subtlety. "Great Lantern at Asakusa Kannon Hall" (1934) required approximately twenty blocks and twenty-five superimposed printings. "Spring Night: Ginza" (1934), "Red Gate at Hongo in Snow," and "Shinbashi in Rain" further established his reputation for nocturnal and weather scenes.

In the 1950s, Kasamatsu expanded beyond Watanabe. Between 1952 and 1960, he collaborated with the Kyoto publisher Unsodo, producing 102 prints including an Eight Views of Tokyo series and landscapes of Nikko. More significantly, he embraced the sosaku-hanga philosophy of self-designing, self-carving, and self-printing, producing approximately 120 self-published prints in limited editions. These bore a hexagonal red seal reading "Shiro" and were signed in pencil in Western fashion, unlike the workshop-applied signatures of his Watanabe editions. The sosaku-hanga prints revealed a more experimental aesthetic with stronger Western influences, focusing on landscapes and kacho-e bird-and-flower subjects.

A defining characteristic of Kasamatsu's work was his overwhelming preference for vertical compositions, setting him apart from Hasui, Shinsui, and Yoshida, who used mixed orientations. His shin-hanga prints achieved their effects through rich color and atmospheric nuance; his later sosaku-hanga works displayed greater compositional freedom. In both modes, he excelled at evoking night, rain, and snow with a subtlety that invited comparison with Hasui while remaining distinctly his own.

He continued producing prints without seeking formal exhibition recognition well into his later years. He died on June 14, 1991, at ninety-three. His works are held at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Rijksmuseum, the Toledo Museum of Art, and the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo.