L'Amour

L'Amour (1957) is a color woodblock print whose French title — "Love" — places it in dialogue with the international art world that Uchima inhabited in 1950s New York. The choice of French rather than English or Japanese for the title signals a cosmopolitan sensibility, perhaps a nod to the School of Paris or to the universal language of romantic feeling that transcends national boundaries. Uchima's abstract treatment of love as subject avoids figuration entirely, rendering emotion through color relationships, formal tension, and the warmth or coolness of printed pigment rather than through the depiction of human bodies or faces.