$2,000–$15,000. Still life prints are among the artist's most iconic works. Good mezzotint still lifes: $5,000–$10,000. Key value factors: Hamaguchi is regarded as one of the greatest mezzotint artists of the 20th century. His fruit and butterfly still lifes are most iconic and command the highest prices.
Dated 1958, this impression of One Cherry falls within Hamaguchi's formative mezzotint decade: by this point he had been working in Paris since the early 1950s, experimenting with color mezzotint technique largely without instruction, and had begun to develop the distinctive deep-ground palette and spare compositional grammar that would characterize his mature work. A 1958 date positions this cherry among his earlier treatments of the subject, before the theme had become a signature. The single fruit, rendered by carefully burnishing a copper plate roughened with a mezzotint rocker, emerges from near-black darkness with a luminous highlight that functions as the composition's sole light source. The stem provides a fine linear counterpoint to the spherical fruit. At this stage of Hamaguchi's career the technique itself was still the primary subject as much as the cherry: each impression was a test of how much gradation could be extracted from the rocked-and-burnished plate before the highlights began to lose their bloom. The 1958 date makes this work a document of methodology as much as a still-life image.
Kumoi sakura
1926
Color woodblock print
1935
Color woodblock print
Romon
1935
Color woodblock print
円山公園桜
Woodblock print
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
One Cherry, 1958 was created by Yozo Hamaguchi (浜口陽三).
One Cherry, 1958 depicts cherry blossoms.
