Gen Yamaguchi

A self-titled print, likely either a self-portrait abstraction or a signature work Yamaguchi designated as personally emblematic of his practice. Self-portraits in the sosaku-hanga tradition --- following the example of Onchi Koshiro's celebrated portrait of the poet Hagiwara Sakutaro --- often departed from physical likeness toward formal or psychological equivalents, using simplified massing, expressive carving, and unconventional textures to characterize the sitter. If pictorial, the print likely reduces the figure to bold dark shapes against contrasting fields, exploiting the woodblock's capacity for emphatic silhouette. If purely abstract, it functions as a kind of artistic signature in shape and color. The work would have been made in the jiga jikoku jizuri manner central to sosaku-hanga doctrine, with Yamaguchi handling all stages himself on washi. Yamaguchi's recognition --- including a major prize at the 1957 Ljubljana International Biennial of Graphic Art --- placed him among the figures whose individual identity, rather than studio production, defined the print.