Popox, Shôwa period, dated 1964

Hiroyuki Tajima (1911–1984) was a Showa-period [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) printmaker who engaged with international abstraction while maintaining a woodblock practice across the postwar decades. 'Popox,' dated 1964, places this work within a period of active international engagement for Japanese printmakers—contemporary with major participation in biennials at São Paulo and Ljubljana, where sosaku-hanga artists attracted significant critical attention. The title suggests a non-representational or semi-abstract composition; Tajima's prints of the 1960s often employed strong geometric or organic forms with flat, saturated color fields achieved through precise block registration. As a sosaku-hanga artist, Tajima controlled all stages of production—design, carving, printing—maintaining authorial consistency across the process. The work's formal vocabulary would reflect both Japanese printmaking craft traditions and the mid-century international concern with abstract pictorial structure.