Professor

Professor (教授) belongs to Akiyama's extensive series of owl portraits, drawing on the Japanese folk association of the owl (fukurō) with scholarship and wisdom—owls in Japanese popular culture are often addressed as hakase, 'doctor' or 'professor.' The print likely depicts a single perched owl in frontal or three-quarter view, rendered with the deliberately simplified, slightly comic facial geometry that became Akiyama's signature handling of the subject. Technically, prints of this type are built from a small number of color blocks—typically a brown or buff body, a black [sumi](/glossary/sumi) key block defining feathers and beak, and round reserved circles for eyes—printed on absorbent [washi](/glossary/washi) with a [baren](/glossary/baren). The folk-naïve drawing distinguishes Akiyama's owls from the more naturalistic kachō-e of earlier woodblock traditions. Owls were among his frequently collected subjects internationally, and represent the spiritual-folk register he developed after training in oil painting and suiboku-ga at the Taiheiyo Bijutsu Gakkō, from which he graduated in 1956.