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.
Farm Houses, a Taisho-era woodblock, depicts rural architecture with the unvarnished directness that [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) valued. These are working buildings rather than picturesque cottages, their forms shaped by function and available materials rather than aesthetic intent. Tobari's self-carved and self-printed block gives the farmhouses a solidity appropriate to their subject, the knife marks carrying the weight of thatched roofs and heavy timber frames. The Taisho period saw rapid urbanization in Japan, making rural scenes like this one simultaneously nostalgic and documentary, recording structures that modern development was already beginning to replace.
Wakasa Kugushiko
1920
Color woodblock print; oban
Woodblock print
1934
Color woodblock print; oban
n.d.
Woodblock print; ishizuri-e, section of harimaze sheet
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Farm houses was created by Kogan Tobari (戸張孤雁) in Japanese, Taishô era, 20th century.
Farm houses depicts landscapes, architecture, and village scenes.
