Tokyo Windows

Unusually for an artist associated with mokuhanga, this work is an etching rather than a woodblock print, reflecting Sekino's parallel engagement with copperplate printmaking alongside his sosaku-hanga production. The subject — Tokyo windows — suggests an architectural study, possibly fragments of facades, reflections, or the geometric patterns of postwar urban housing. Etching offered Sekino a different graphic vocabulary than woodblock: fine linear hatching, tonal shading, and the dense blacks possible from copperplate ink. The shift in medium reflects his interest in the formal language of modernist printmaking, which several sosaku-hanga artists pursued alongside their woodblock work. As a piece of Tokyo imagery, it joins his urban subjects — train stations, neighborhoods, modern interiors — that document a city undergoing rapid postwar reconstruction. The print indicates that for Sekino, printmaking was a broader graphic discipline rather than a single inherited technique.