Devastation
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Edition:
- Self-printed
- Source:
- Honolulu Museum of Art
Typical Price
$500–$5,000. Common prints: $500–$1,500. Key value factors: Kitaoka's refined style has a modest but loyal collector base.
Description
"Devastation" — a title without the series designation of the "Journey to the Homeland" prints — may refer either to the immediate postwar landscape of destruction or to an interior condition. Kitaoka's postwar work repeatedly returned to the subject of ruin and its aftermath, the physical evidence of catastrophe that he witnessed across Manchuria and Japan. The print brings his mature formal vocabulary to bear on a subject that resists aesthetic consolation, the bold geometry of his style becoming a container for difficult content.
More Prints by Fumio Kitaoka
More Urban Scenes Prints
A Hundred Shades of Ink of Edo: Kiyonaga's Pipe (Edo zumi hyaku shoku: Kiyonaga no kiseru)
Woodblock print
View of Kabuki Theater from Matsuya (Ginza Matsuya yori Kabukiza), no. 3 from the series "Pictures of Ginza, First Series (Gashu Ginza dai isshu)"
1928
Color lithograph
Distant View of Mitsukoshi Movie Theater in Shinjuku from the Sixth Floor of Hoteiya (Hoteiya rokkai kara Shinjuku Mitsukoshi Musashi no kan enbo zu), no. 1 from the series "Scenery of Shinjuku (Gashu Shinjuku fukei)"
1930
Color lithograph
Spring Dusk at the Tōshō Shrine in Ueno
1948
Woodblock print, ink and color on paper
Featured in Collections
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Frequently Asked Questions
Devastation was created by Fumio Kitaoka (北岡文雄).
Devastation depicts urban scenes, landscapes, and figures.