Black horses
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Edition:
- Self-printed
- Source:
- Japanese Art Open Database
$500–$5,000. Common prints: $500–$1,500. Key value factors: Kitaoka's refined style has a modest but loyal collector base.
Two or more horses rendered in stark black move across the composition with the concentrated energy of animals in full life. Kitaoka strips the figures of setting and detail, leaving pure animal form: the muscular curve of haunch and shoulder, the thick arc of neck, the massed weight of multiple bodies pressing together or apart. The black-on-pale contrast is visually decisive, the horses' dark forms reading with immediate graphic force. It is a subject that allowed Kitaoka to explore movement and mass without the mediation of landscape or narrative.
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
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Black horses was created by Fumio Kitaoka (北岡文雄).
Black horses depicts animals and abstract.
