(untitled)

This untitled work by Ishii Hakutei reflects the experimental spirit that defined his career as a [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) pioneer at the turn of the twentieth century. Trained originally as a Western-style oil painter under his father Ishii Teiko and later at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, Hakutei brought a cosmopolitan eye to printmaking that set his work apart from the studio-driven [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) tradition. He was among the small circle of artists who, alongside Yamamoto Kanae and Ishii Tsuruzo, argued that a print should be the work of a single artist's hand from design through carving and printing — the foundational claim of the creative prints movement.