Blue Freeze
- Date:
- 1960
- Medium:
- Color woodblock print; edition 2/50
- Edition:
- Self-printed
- Source:
- Art Institute of Chicago
Description
Blue Freeze from 1960, edition 2 of 50, shows Azechi using color as emotional notation: the cold blue of frozen water or packed ice rendered in the saturated, unmodulated hues of his mature print style, the freeze itself captured not through descriptive detail but through the tonal relationship of blue against white or blue against the darker value of rock and shadow. The very small edition of 50 and the impression number 2 suggest this was among the first prints pulled, when the block's surface was sharpest and the ink freshest.
More Prints by Umetaro Azechi
![Untitled [portrait of a boy] by Umetaro Azechi](https://1.api.artsmia.org/800/136025.jpg)
More Snow Scenes Prints
Fair Weather After Snow at Yamato Bridge, Kyoto (Yamato bashi no yukibare), Taishô period, dated 1924
Woodblock print
The Compound of the Tenman Shrine at Kameido in the Snow (Kameido Tenmangu keidai no yuki), from the series "Famous Places in the Eastern Capital (Toto meisho)"
c. 1832/38
Color woodblock print; oban
Miyajima in Snow (Yuki no Miyajima)
Yuki no Miyajima
1929
Color woodblock print; oban
Evening Snow at Shiha Park, Tokyo
1932
Woodblock print
Featured in Collections
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Frequently Asked Questions
Blue Freeze was created by Umetaro Azechi (畦地梅太郎) in 1960.
Blue Freeze depicts snow scenes, winter, and abstract.