Professional Golfers

Part of Wada Sanzo's documentary series cataloguing Showa-era occupations, this print depicts golfers, a profession introduced to Japan in the early 20th century alongside other Western imports. The figures likely appear in plus-fours, flat caps, and the formal sporting attire of the period, rendered mid-swing or beside their bags and clubs. Wada's compositional method isolates the figures against minimal backgrounds, with the specific tools and costume of the trade carrying the identification of profession. Carved into multiple woodblocks and printed on washi using the baren, the print uses flat color planes and confident contour lines, with bokashi gradations possible in sky or grass. Trained at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts under Kuroda Seiki in Western yoga, Wada brought a Western-informed sense of volume to subjects ranging from modern professions like aviation and Western music to traditional occupations like pearl diving and pilgrimage. Distinct from shin-hanga landscapes by Hasui or Yoshida, the series occupies a documentary register, treating golfers with the same ethnographic attention as Buddhist nuns and oxcart drivers.