Profile

Given Inagaki's almost compulsive return to the cat as a subject, a print titled simply Profile is likely a feline head shown from the side. The composition would reduce the animal to a clean contour: the slope of the brow, the pricked triangle of the ear, the line of the muzzle, and a single visible eye rendered either as a luminous slit or a wide pale disc. The body fills with flat black or a single dense color, set against a contrasting ground that may carry a soft bokashi or a deliberately exposed woodgrain. This is the formal logic that made Inagaki's cats internationally collectible from the 1950s onward — the same graphic punch as a modernist poster, but printed by hand on washi with a baren so that the impression carries the warmth of the medium. A side view in particular emphasizes silhouette over expression, aligning the print with his most pared-back compositions.