Statue of Christ in Montmartre, Shôwa period, 1959

Dated 1959, this print belongs to a group of European works Sekino produced during travels that brought him into contact with Parisian art communities. Montmartre, the hilltop quarter of Paris dominated by the Basilica of Sacré-Cœur, contains Christ figures associated with the basilica's exterior and interior iconography, including a prominent gilded statue. Sekino's approach—working from direct observation and translating impressions into woodblock—would have filtered this Western religious monument through the compositional priorities of sosaku-hanga: bold silhouette, considered color, and expressive line. The juxtaposition of a Christian sculptural subject with the Japanese woodblock print medium creates an implicit cross-cultural dialogue that Sekino and other sosaku-hanga artists were self-consciously engaged in during the postwar period of international exchange. The print demonstrates Sekino's willingness to treat any visual subject—regardless of cultural origin—as material for personal artistic investigation, carrying the sosaku-hanga ethos into European territory.