My Wife

This portrait of Sekino's wife represents one of the most personal categories of his sosaku-hanga production — the intimate domestic portrait made without commercial purpose. Unlike bijin-ga prints designed to depict a generalized feminine ideal, Sekino's portraits of his wife are records of a specific individual rendered with the full resources of his mature printmaking technique. The composition likely employs the close-cropped format he used for other family portraits, directing attention to the face and the particularities of expression and physiognomy. Sekino designed, carved, and printed the work himself, giving him complete expressive control from the initial drawing through the final impression on washi. Such privately motivated portraits reflect the core sosaku-hanga principle that the print is a direct vehicle for the artist's personal vision, as immediate and unmediated as a painting or drawing.