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Ishikawa Toraji (Japanese, 1875–1964).

Tsurezure [Boredom]

c1934. Colour woodcut, signed in ink with artist’s red seal on image upper right, stamped or printed Japanese characters in left margin, 30.1 x 37.9cm. Slight foxing, minor crinkles, tape verso.

From the series Ten Types of Female Nudes. Image shows a woman idly flipping through a book with a cat sleeping by her side. Alternative titles include Leisure Hours. Held in Art Gallery of NSW; National Gallery of Victoria.

“During the first half of the twentieth century, Japan’s traditional aesthetics interacted with ideals of European contemporary lifestyle, resulting in a vibrant period of Japanese modernism and the creation of Asian Art Deco paintings, prints, design and fashion…One of the most celebrated and controversial series of prints of this dynamic era is Toraji Ishikawa’s Ten Nudes. In 1934, at the age of 54, he collaborated with the woodblock carver Yamagishi Kazue (1891–1984) to self-publish a series of deluxe polychrome large-format prints featuring graduating colours and glistening mica backgrounds. Toraji’s tour de force, Ten Nudes depicts Japanese women in fashionable 1930s lounge room and bathroom interiors that are decorated with Art Deco furniture, fabrics, rugs, curtains, wallpaper, tiles and fittings. The figurative style is influenced by his travels and studies in Europe…these contemporary women are captured at private moments in the seclusion of intimate home settings, playing with pets, reading a book or bathing. Their natural, languid poses are accompanied by accessories of pleasure and leisure in the form of stretching cats, a fluffy Pekingese dog, a scattering of mah-jong tiles, a quintessential 1930s blue parrot…Due to the series’ sensual and explicit nature and its release being made during times of growing political authoritarianism, police attempted to ban the series at the time of its release and Toraji only produced one further single sheet nude print in 1936.” Ref: Wayne Crothers, National Gallery of Victoria (2015).

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Item #CL206-47

Price (AUD): $3,500.00  other currencies