self portrait spitzack woodblock woodcut mokuhanga print printmaking washi seattle art artist

A self-portrait, a genre with limited representation in pre-modern Japanese woodblock printing—where ukiyo-e portraiture concentrated on actors and beauties rather than the artist's own image—but central to Western art history and to the autobiographical impulse common in contemporary mokuhanga. The genre allows the artist to test the medium's representational range against the intimate referent of his own face, and mokuhanga's capacity for soft tonal modeling through bokashi gradations and layered color blocks suits the rendering of skin and shadow. Each block must be carved and registered with kentō notches, and a portrait of any tonal complexity typically requires multiple impressions in sequence. Spitzack's recognition at the 2024 International Mokuhanga Conference in Echizen places his practice within an international community that has expanded mokuhanga's subject matter beyond its Edo-period origins, and self-portraiture in particular signals an artistic identity that situates the maker rather than the historical subject at the center of the picture.