Signal K, Shôwa period, dated 1962

Medium:: Woodblock print
Edition:: Self-printed
Source:: Harvard Art Museums

Typical Price

Exceptional or early edition Saito print in fine condition: $3,000–$15,000

Good condition mid-career print: $500–$2,000

Standard edition: $200–$600

Description

Signal K from 1962 belongs to what appears to have been a brief venture into more explicitly abstract composition—the title suggesting a visual signal or communication rendered in purely geometric form, without representational subject. The K designation may indicate a color variant or a work from a series of signal compositions. This print demonstrates that Saito's reductive approach to representational subjects was always in dialogue with the possibility of pure abstraction, and he occasionally crossed that line.