After the Bath (Tokyo)

A bijin-ga depicting a nude figure after bathing, this print reflects Onchi's engagement with Western figurative traditions filtered through the sosaku-hanga ethos of personal artistic expression. Unlike the idealized courtesans of Edo-period ukiyo-e, Onchi's approach to the female figure drew on modernist sensibilities absorbed through his study of European expressionism and his friendship with poets and writers in the Taisho and Showa cultural circles. The Tokyo designation likely anchors the work in a specific urban domestic context rather than the pleasure quarters of older print conventions. Onchi carved and printed the block himself, and his bijin-ga works typically favor simplified planes of color and an intimate, psychologically present quality over decorative surface pattern. Bokashi gradations and restrained palette choices distinguish his figural work from both the shinhanga bijin-ga of contemporaries and the older nishiki-e tradition.