Interior Series

This print, drawn from Wada Sanzo's Showa Shokugyo Emaki, addresses the interior decorator or upholsterer at work — one of the more domestic trades catalogued across the series. Compositions of this kind in Wada's occupational prints typically place the worker mid-task, surrounded by the materials and tools of the craft: bolts of cloth, tatami edging, screens under repair, or a partially dressed Western-style room. The artist's handling carries forward the design lessons of his Tokyo Bijutsu Gakko training under Kuroda Seiki, with figures modeled by simplified planes rather than line alone, and a measured tonal range printed in successive impressions on washi. The mokuhanga technique gives even the most ordinary domestic objects a deliberate weight: each panel of fabric, each frame, sits as a distinct printed shape. Within the wider series, the Interior print belongs to a thread of compositions that examine the labor underwriting modern middle-class living spaces, complementing prints of architects, sign painters, and shop assistants and reinforcing Wada's documentary sympathy for the unseen hands of Showa daily life.