![[abstracted man holding object] by Nakao Yoshitaka — Japanese Woodblock print, ink and color on paper, 1957](https://1.api.artsmia.org/800/135965.jpg)
[abstracted man holding object]
- Date:
- 1957
- Medium:
- Woodblock print, ink and color on paper
- Dimensions:
- 76.2 × 65.1 cm
- Source:
- Minneapolis Institute of Art
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.
This 1957 ink and color woodblock shows a male figure holding an unidentified object, both rendered through Nakao Yoshitaka's abstracting lens. The man and his possession are reduced to interlocking shapes and flattened planes, the human form recognizable but simplified to its structural essentials. The object's identity remains ambiguous, its abstraction preventing easy identification. Nakao treats figure and object as equal compositional elements, neither more important than the other, both subject to the same process of reduction. The 1957 date places this within a concentrated period of figurative abstraction in Nakao's work, when he was testing how far he could simplify the human body while maintaining its legibility.
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
[abstracted man holding object] was created by Nakao Yoshitaka (中尾義隆) in 1957.
[abstracted man holding object] depicts figures and abstract.
[abstracted man holding object] measures 76.2 × 65.1 cm.
![[Grey Figure Posing] by Nakao Yoshitaka](https://1.api.artsmia.org/800/135848.jpg)
