Image No.6 Motherhood (1)

Part of Sekino's sustained figure series, this print likely presents a mother and child in an intimate, closely observed composition characteristic of his portrait work. Sekino brought the [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) ethos to figurative subject matter, carving, printing, and publishing each work himself. The numbering suggests this belongs to a thematic sequence exploring maternal bonds, a subject that invited psychological depth alongside formal experiment. Sekino typically rendered faces with precise, economical line work, allowing gradations of [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) to model volume across cheek and brow. His palette in figure subjects tended toward warm earth tones and muted reds, applied through multiple woodblocks to build luminous, layered skin tones. The intimacy of the mother-and-child motif connects to a long tradition in Japanese art while Sekino's bold, self-authored approach reflects the individualism central to the sosaku-hanga movement.