was a Japanese woodblock printer, one of the major postwar artists of the '' sosaku hanga'' ("creative print") movement.

Early life

Sekino Jun'ichirō was born in 1914 in the Yasukata district of

Aomori , officially Aomori City (, ), is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Aomori Prefecture, in the Tōhoku region of Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 264,945 in 136,781 households, and a population density of 321 people per squa ...

Aomori Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan in the Tōhoku region. The prefecture's capital, largest city, and namesake is the city of Aomori (city), Aomori. Aomori is the northernmost prefecture on Japan's main island, Honshu, and is border ...

, in northern Japan. From a young age he immersed himself in the study of printmaking. In middle school he started a magazine ''Ryokuju-mu'' ("Dream of Green Foliage") devoted to poetry and print. Sekino studied at Nishida Takeo's Japanese Etching Institute and enrolled at private school to learn oil painting and drawing. From 1931 he studied intaglio printmaking and

lithography Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the miscibility, immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by ...

under Kon Junzō who considered his pupil "an artistic genius." In 1935 Sekino submitted an etching of Aomori harbor to a government sponsored Teiten exhibition and won a first prize. Later the same year he was awarded a prize for print exhibited at the Nihon Hanga Kyokai (Japanese Print Association). He joined the Nihon Hanga Kyokai in 1938, and the Kokugakai (National Picture Association) in 1940.

Career

In April 1939 Sekino moved to Tokyo where he was employed by publisher Shimo Taro and met

Kōshirō Onchi , born in Tokyo, was a Japanese print-maker. He was the father of the '' sōsaku-hanga'' movement in twentieth century Japan, and a photographer. His work was part of the painting event in the art competition at the 1932 Summer Olympics. Biogra ...

. He was one of the founding members of Onchi's Ichimokukai (First Thursday Society), where he was considered Onchi's "right-hand man." During the Second World War, Sekino procured lodging and theater facilities for entertainment troupes. Through this role he met famous

kabuki is a classical form of Theatre of Japan, Japanese theatre, mixing dramatic performance with Japanese traditional dance, traditional dance. Kabuki theatre is known for its heavily stylised performances, its glamorous, highly decorated costumes ...

actor Nakamura Kichiemon I whose woodblock portrait he produced in 1947. Alongside further depictions of artists such as Shikō Munakata and Onchi, it became one of his most renowned pieces, and established him as the country's pre-eminent woodblock portraitist. Besides portraits, Sekino produced still lifes, landscapes (both rural scenes and cityscapes), depictions of animals, and abstract works. He also worked in lithography and etching, and in 1953 founded the Japanese Etchers Society. In 1958, at the invitation of the Japan Society, Sekino taught at America's

Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York. It has an additional campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The institute was founded in 18 ...

. In 1963 Gordon Gilkey of the

Oregon State University Oregon State University (OSU) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Corvallis, Oregon, United States. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate degree programs and a variety of graduate and doctor ...

hired him to teach a class. He also taught at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

and worked in

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

at the Tamarind Studio where he studied with

Glen Alps Glen Alps (1914-1996) was a printmaker and educator who is credited with having developed the collagraph. A collagraph is a print whose plate is a board or other substrate onto which textured materials are glued. The plate may be inked for printi ...

, the inventor of

collography Collagraphy (sometimes spelled collography) is a printmaking process in which materials are glued or sealed to a rigid substrate (such as paperboard or wood) to create a plate. Once inked, the plate becomes a tool for imprinting the design onto p ...

. In 1969 he returned to Oregon State where, in 1975, his series depicting

the Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō ''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The ...

was exhibited with

Hiroshige or , born Andō Tokutarō (; 1797 – 12 October 1858), was a Japanese ''ukiyo-e'' artist, considered the last great master of that tradition. Hiroshige is best known for his horizontal-format landscape series '' The Fifty-three Stations ...

's famous 1834 version.

Prints

Sekino was influenced by German Renaissance artist

Albrecht Dürer Albrecht Dürer ( , ;; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528),Müller, Peter O. (1993) ''Substantiv-Derivation in Den Schriften Albrecht Dürers'', Walter de Gruyter. . sometimes spelled in English as Durer or Duerer, was a German painter, Old master prin ...

and stated that, "one of the things I like most about him is his thoroughness, his corner-to-corner completeness." Sekino created over 400 prints. His years of studying printmaking techniques enabled him to produce work of a consistent and extremely high quality, in excess of most of his contemporary ''sosaku hanga'' artists. Onchi honoured him in allowing Sekino to reprint his ''Portrait of Hagiwara Sakutaro'', and he assisted Maekawa Senpan in his ''Hot Spring Notes'' series. As well as the Fifty-Three Stations, Sekino created series such as: ''Old Capital'', ''Prints of the Narrow Road to the Deep North'', ''Collection of Aomori Folk Toys'' and ''Collection of Famous Japan Folk Toys''. He contributed to Onchi's 1945 series ''Scenes of Last Tokyo'' (Tokyo kaiko zue).Merritt, 1992

Notes

References

* * Merritt, Helen. ''Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints - The Early Years'', University of Hawaii Press, 1998, p. 240-241 * Merritt, Helen. ''Guide to Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints: 1900-1975'', University of Hawaii Press, 1992, p. 133-134 * Petit, Gaston. ''44 Modern Japanese Print Artists, Volume II'', Kodansha International Ltd., 1973, p. 120 * Statler, Oliver. ''Modern Japanese Prints'', p. 63-64. * Fiorillo, John "The Art of Sekino Jun'ichirō: Expressive Realism and Geometric Formalism" in ''Andon'' (The Journal of the Society for Japanese Arts), Autumn 2017, No. 104, p. 77.

External links

Sekino World
website
Catalogue of Sekino Jun'ichiro prints
Approximately 650 of an estimated 900 woodblock prints catalogued. {{DEFAULTSORT:Sekino, Junichiro 1914 births 1988 deaths Japanese printmakers Artists from Aomori Prefecture People from Aomori (city) Sosaku hanga artists Aomori High School alumni