Key value factors: As self-carved and self-printed works, sosaku-hanga value is tied to the artist's reputation and edition size. Larger formats, earlier editions, and historically significant works command the highest prices.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Library, a civic institution dedicated to public access to books and information, becomes a woodblock print subject in Suwa's ongoing documentation of Tokyo's built environment. Libraries occupy a specific place in the urban landscape as quiet, inward-focused buildings that contrast with the commercial energy of their surroundings. Suwa renders the library's architecture with the observational precision he brings to all his urban subjects, capturing the building's facade, its relationship to the street, and the way it sits within its neighborhood context. The choice of a library as subject continues Suwa's democratic approach to Tokyo, where a reading room is as worthy of artistic attention as a famous shrine or scenic overlook.
Woodblock print
1928
Color lithograph
1930
Color lithograph
1948
Woodblock print, ink and color on paper
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Tokyo Metro Library was created by Kanenori Suwa (諏訪兼紀).
Tokyo Metro Library depicts urban scenes and architecture, set at Tokyo.
