71-2

The designation 71-2 places this print in 1971, by which point Maki Haku had fully consolidated his mixed-relief technique. Works from this period typically show increased confidence in spatial manipulation: compressed passages of texture sit against open, unworked fields of washi, amplifying the relief's shadow play. Maki often derived his abstract forms from classical Chinese and Japanese calligraphy, and prints from the early 1970s frequently feature single large motifs — swelling, crater-like impressions or dense textured cores — that occupy the sheet with quiet authority. The embossed element here would have been built up from carved wood reinforced with hardened filler materials, then inked and printed under pressure sufficient to transfer both pigment and physical topography to the paper.