Portrait of a Boy, Shôwa period, circa 1961(?)

Portraiture of children occupied Sekino throughout his career, and this circa 1961 work reflects his mature approach to the human face in the [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) medium. Rather than the idealized facial types of Edo-period [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga), Sekino's portraits engage with specific physiognomy—the particular shape of a child's cheek, the placement of eyes, the quality of attention in the subject's gaze. The woodblock's grain and the directness of Sekino's carving tool lend the portrait a tactile immediacy that photographic reproduction cannot replicate. He likely used a limited number of color blocks to model the face, relying on [washi](/glossary/washi) paper tone as the lightest value and layering transparent ink passages for shadow. By the early 1960s Sekino had developed considerable international recognition for his portrait prints, and this work belongs to that mature period when his technical command and expressive economy were fully integrated.