Portrait of Sphinx: Etching 2 of 6, Shôwa period, dated 1970

The second plate of the 1970 suite continues Ikeda's sequential examination of the Sphinx motif, advancing the visual and conceptual logic established in the first impression. Within the context of Shōwa-period printmaking, Ikeda's sustained engagement with a single mythological subject across six plates aligns with international practices of serial art while drawing on the sequential logic familiar from Japanese woodblock print suites organized around a repeated subject. Each plate in the series would have been printed in the same campaign, allowing close comparison of how the figure evolves from plate to plate as Ikeda's inquiry deepens or shifts focus.