Face(s)

Face(s) presents the central motif of Kinoshita Tomio's career—the human visage—rendered in plural form, the parenthetical title signaling either multiple faces sharing a single field or a single face read as several. The composition likely arranges abstracted, mask-like countenances in adjacency or overlap, exploiting the woodblock's capacity for hard-edged repetition. Sosaku-hanga method allowed Kinoshita to register each face from carved blocks of his own cutting, with the baren producing the flat, slightly grain-inflected planes characteristic of mokuhanga on washi. Limited color—often a black key block paired with one or two restrained tones—keeps emphasis on contour and interval. The doubling or multiplication of the face motif relates to Kinoshita's lifelong investigation of identity, mask, and metaphysical presence, themes that earned him the Japan Print Association Award in 1958 and the Kokuga Award in 1960. The work sits within the postwar sosaku-hanga current that turned woodblock from reproductive craft toward personal, expressive image-making.