Hiratsuka Un'ichi

Hiratsuka Un'ichi (1895-1997) was one of the leading figures and teachers of the sosaku-hanga (creative print) movement in Japan. Born in Matsue, Shimane Prefecture, he studied Western-style painting under Okada Saburōsuke before turning to printmaking, and trained in traditional woodblock carving under the master carver Igami Bonkotsu — an unusually rigorous grounding in cutting technique for an artist of his generation. The sosaku-hanga movement, whose origins are often traced to Yamamoto Kanae's 1904 print 'Fisherman,' held that artists should design, carve, and print their own works, in contrast to the collaborative division of labour of the ukiyo-e and shin-hanga traditions — a principle Hiratsuka championed throughout his life.

Throughout his extraordinarily long and prolific career, Hiratsuka created a vast body of work, predominantly bold black-and-white woodcuts characterised by strong contrasts and dynamic compositions. His subjects ranged from Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines to modern cityscapes, rendered with a distinctively powerful cutting technique. An active member of the Nihon Sosaku-Hanga Kyokai (Japan Creative Print Association), he taught woodblock-cutting to a rising generation of printmakers, most notably Shiko Munakata, whom he instructed in wood carving from 1928.

In 1962, Hiratsuka moved to Washington, D.C., where he continued to create prints and remained artistically active well into his old age before eventually returning to Japan. He received numerous honours, becoming in 1970 the first print artist to receive the Order of Cultural Merit and, in 1977, the first artist awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure. His longevity — he lived to 102 — made him a living link between the pre-war origins of sosaku-hanga and its postwar international recognition.