Washing Her Hair
- Date:
- Not set
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Format:
- Oban
- Publisher:
- Watanabe Shozaburo
- Edition:
- Published by Watanabe Shozaburo
- Source:
- Japanese Art Open Database
This is among Kotondo's most celebrated compositions. Kotondo created only 21 bijin-ga designs (1927–1933), and the original woodblocks were destroyed before WWII, making any original period impression extraordinarily rare. "Kamisuki (Hair Combing)" set the artist record at $72,500 at Christie's New York in 2019.
A woman washes her hair, bending forward to rinse the long strands or to lather them, the weight and wetness of the hair central to the composition. The hair-washing subject belongs to Kotondo's sustained interest in women's private ablutions — activities performed alone, absorbed, without self-consciousness. Wet hair, unbound and heavy with water, is visually very different from dry hair, and Kotondo renders this distinctive condition with the attentiveness of someone interested in the changing states of the body through its daily rituals.
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Washing Her Hair was created by Torii Kotondo (鳥居言人) in Not set.
Washing Her Hair was published by Watanabe Shozaburo (Not set).
Washing Her Hair depicts daily life.
