Black Cat moves Maeda into the small but persistent thread of feline subjects in modern Japanese printmaking, a genre that runs from Hiroshige's nineteenth-century cats through the more graphic, design-forward treatments of twentieth-century [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) artists. A black cat is a particularly demanding mokuhanga subject because it forces the printmaker to convey form almost entirely through silhouette and the modulation of a single dark pigment against the [washi](/glossary/washi) ground, with [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) or careful re-inking used to suggest the sheen of fur or the curvature of the body. Maeda's likely approach favors flat shape and confident contour over descriptive modeling, in keeping with his sosaku-hanga practice of letting the carved block do the structural work. The print sits apart from his Hokkaido landscapes in subject but shares their reductive palette and direct surface, and it reflects the broader mid-century interest among Japanese printmakers in domestic and animal subjects that could be made outside the publisher system and sold directly to collectors through exhibitions and print societies.
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Black cat was created by Maeda Masao (前田政雄).
Black cat depicts cats.
