by Ei-Q
Key value factors: As self-carved and self-printed works, sosaku-hanga value is tied to the artist's reputation and edition size. Larger formats, earlier editions, and historically significant works command the highest prices.
Bearing a Harvard Art Museums accession number as its title (HUAM CARP07164), this print by Ei-Q is part of the institutional cataloging system that tracks works through the museum's collection management database. The "CARP" prefix indicates the museum's print and photograph classification. Ei-Q's prints held at Harvard represent his practice of building layered compositions from biomorphic shapes that float and interlock without reference to the visible world. His technique involved carving organic, rounded forms into woodblocks, then printing them in overlapping passes that created spatial depth through transparency and overlap. The resulting images look like views through a microscope or telescope, scaled-up glimpses of a hidden world. Ei-Q died in 1960 at only forty-nine, cutting short a career that had already reshaped assumptions about what Japanese printmaking could accomplish.
Hebizukai
1932
Color woodblock print; oban
1935
Color woodblock print; oban
1964
Acrylic paint and oil pastel with oiled charcoal and ink over an ink and graphite underdrawing on paper
1964
Color lithograph with relief block and hand coloring; edition 35/36
Huam Carp07164 was created by Ei-Q (瑛九).
Huam Carp07164 depicts animals and abstract.
