Doll Maker

A 1956 woodblock centered on the figure of a craftsperson who fabricates the traditional Japanese dolls used in Girls' Day and other ceremonial contexts. The doll-maker appears surrounded by the uncanny faces of their creations — or perhaps holds a single finished piece with the care of someone who has invested weeks of precision work in a fragile object. Sekino was drawn to artisans whose labor combined skill with artistic vision, seeing a kinship with his own printmaking practice.