Poppy No.-10

Poppy No. 10 belongs to Sugiura Kazutoshi's serial investigation of single flower subjects, a format the artist returned to repeatedly across decades of practice. The image isolates one or more poppy blossoms against a flat decorative ground, a compositional approach extending the [kacho-e](/glossary/kacho-e) tradition into a contemporary register. The poppy's thin crepe-like petals and dark stamen cluster lend themselves to Sugiura's signature layering of flat color fields with metallic and textured passages, where translucent washes describe petal volume while tighter linework defines the flower's interior structure. Numbered series like this one allowed Sugiura to test variations of palette, scale, and ground treatment on a recurring motif, much as Edo-period kacho-e designers explored seasonal flowers across multiple states. Within his broader output — held by the Brooklyn Museum, MoMA, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the British Museum — the poppy works occupy a register slightly more graphic and less ornamented than his iris and peony subjects, with the flower's silhouette pressed forward against a quieter field.