Roofs of Florence, Shôwa period, 1959

Produced during or following Sekino's travels in Europe, this 1959 print renders the distinctive terracotta-tiled roofscape of Florence as seen from an elevated vantage point. The composition likely emphasizes the rhythmic repetition of roof planes and chimney pots, translating a Mediterranean architectural texture into the language of woodblock. Sekino's cutting technique would have needed to adapt to the warm ochres and siennas of Florentine stone and tile, a palette distinct from his Japanese subjects. The work is part of a broader postwar tendency among Japanese printmakers to bring Western urban subjects within the formal and technical conventions of sōsaku-hanga, testing whether those conventions could absorb fundamentally non-Japanese visual material.