Portrait of the Artist Onchi Kôshirô, Shôwa period, dated 1956

A posthumous portrait of the artist himself — Onchi Koshiro depicted after his death in 1955 by another hand — represents the esteem in which he was held by his contemporaries and students. The portrait format was one Onchi himself mastered in his celebrated series of artist and poet portraits, and this posthumous image engages that tradition by applying to Onchi's own face the same attentive observation he brought to those he depicted. The woodblock portrait as a form of memorial and tribute was well established in the sosaku-hanga movement Onchi founded.