Firewood (Maki)

This 1960 artist's proof, "Firewood (Maki)," renders the stacked logs and split wood of a woodpile as a study in geometric form and the materiality of the everyday. Firewood as subject draws attention to the woodblock print's own essential material — the same wood, differently worked — and Kitaoka's composition makes the most of this resonance. The grain patterns, the irregular ends of split logs, the interlocking stacks all become occasions for varied texture and pattern within a rigorously structured composition.