Abstract

A non-representational composition from Kitaoka's abstract phase, the body of work that emerged after his 1954–1956 stay in Paris and his subsequent residency teaching at Oregon State University and exhibiting in New York. Abstract prints in his catalogue typically build from overlapping flat shapes carved on multiple cherry blocks, with edges left deliberately rough by the chisel rather than ruled, and surfaces varied by the grain of the wood itself showing through inked passages. Kitaoka often pulled subtle tonal shifts within a single color field by re-inking the block unevenly or by varying baren pressure, producing the matte, breathing quality that distinguishes Japanese mokuhanga from screenprint or lithograph abstraction. The numbering of the title — one of a sequence titled simply Abstract — reflects the sosaku-hanga ethos of the work as serial visual investigation rather than illustration. Works of this kind position Kitaoka alongside Onchi Kōshirō and Saitō Kiyoshi within the postwar generation that brought the woodblock print fully into the international vocabulary of mid-century abstraction.