Old Man of an Island

The title suggests a figure subject, possibly an elderly inhabitant of one of the small islands within Tokyo's river and canal system, several of which fell within the Shitamachi district that occupied Fujimaki throughout his brief career. Sosaku-hanga prints of solitary figures from this period commonly use simplified outline drawing and restrained color, with the carved line on washi carrying the principal expressive weight rather than the pigment. Where ukiyo-e portrait conventions emphasized identification and likeness, sosaku-hanga figure work treats the subject as a study in form, posture, and the texture of daily life. Fujimaki worked in dialogue with Ono Tadashige and other young printmakers active in the early 1930s, and his figural prints share with theirs an interest in unidealized working-class subjects drawn from the immediate Tokyo environment. The print belongs to the small surviving body of work Fujimaki produced before his disappearance in September 1935 at the age of twenty-four; the 1978 retrospective brought such pieces back into circulation.