Tomorrow

Produced in 1972 as a limited edition of 50 impressions, this color woodblock print bears a title that looks forward rather than backward. "Tomorrow" is an unusual subject for a woodblock print, a medium more commonly associated with recording the present or commemorating the past. Kinoshita Tomio's treatment of this forward-looking concept would necessarily be abstract, since the future cannot be depicted literally. The composition likely features a face or figure oriented upward or outward, suggesting anticipation rather than memory. Edition number 8 of 50 places this impression early in the run, when the carved block's finest details remained crisp. By 1972, Kinoshita had been working with faces and masks for over fifteen years, and this print may represent a moment of summary or transition in his practice, the title suggesting that after sustained exploration of a single theme, the artist was considering what might come next.