Iris No 45 — 花菖蒲 No 45

An earlier numbered entry from Sugiura Kazutoshi's iris series, this print shows the hana-shōbu at a stage when his compositional language was still developing — the relationship between blossom and negative space is perhaps more tentative than in the higher-numbered works, yet the characteristic layering of pigment and the integration of gold leaf are already fully present. The iris petals in this composition fall and spread with a naturalism drawn from Sugiura's years studying classical Japanese painting in Kyoto, balanced against a decisively modern flatness of color field.