Poem 70-26, Shôwa period, 1970

Poem 70-26 is part of Maki Haku's long-running Poem series, the body of work for which he is best known internationally and which exemplifies his contribution to postwar Japanese abstract kanji prints. Created during the Showa period in 1970 and preserved in the Harvard Art Museums collection (recorded as HUAM-INV018417 and surfaced through [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e).org), the print belongs to a numbered sequence that Maki Haku produced over decades, each work titled simply "Poem" followed by a serial number that locates it within the cycle. The series treats the woodblock not as a vehicle for narrative or representation but as a meditative field in which a single enlarged Chinese character, or a fragment of calligraphic gesture, is set into a heavily textured ground built up from cement, sand, and pigment applied to the block before printing. The resulting surfaces carry a tactile, almost geological quality that distinguishes Maki Haku's prints from the flatter graphic vocabulary of many of his [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) peers. Born Maejima Tadaaki in 1924 in Ibaraki Prefecture, Maki Haku worked outside the academic mainstream and was largely self-taught, embracing the sosaku-hanga (creative print) principle that the artist should design, carve, and print the work himself. The 1970 dating places Poem 70-26 within the most sought-after period of his output, when his international reputation was at its peak. Source: Harvard Art Museums via ukiyo-e.org, object record HUAM-INV018417.