John's Beach

A seascape print likely produced during Hiratsuka's American period after he relocated to Washington, D.C. in 1962. The title suggests an Atlantic shoreline observed during one of his New England sojourns, where coastal subjects entered his repertoire alongside the temples and shrines of his Japanese work. Compositions of this type from Hiratsuka typically reduce the elements of beach, water, and sky to broad masses of cleanly cut black against unprinted [washi](/glossary/washi), with the wood grain often left visible to suggest sand texture or wave movement. Foreground rocks or driftwood are rendered through sharp angular cuts that exploit the cutting tool's character rather than imitating brushwork. As a founding figure of [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga), Hiratsuka designed, carved, and printed each impression himself, and his beach subjects extend the principle that landscape need not be Japanese to suit the mokuhanga tradition. Such prints document his late-career engagement with American geography while maintaining the high-contrast aesthetic established in his Buddhist and Shimane Prefecture work of the 1930s and 1940s.