Japanese Woodblock Print, 1946, published by Takamizawa Honsha for Fugaku Shuppan-sha

SIZE IN INCHES: chuban, 10.75 x 8 inches

COMMENTS: Nihon Minzoku Zufu (Pictures of Japanese Native Customs). From the series of 12 prints done by well known sosaku hanga artists right after World War II.

"Iyo no Togyu" - the bull fight at Uwajima Island and the southern Iyo area was imported from the Spanish merchant ship which had wrecked more than 200 years ago. In Uwajima Island, the bulls were bread as fighters from their birth on. They received food such as chicken eggs and mochi rice, and were more pampered than humans. At the day of the tornament, the bulls wore colorful robes. They were led in high spirits to the arena with banners on which their names inscribed.

UMETARO AZECHI (1902-1999) was born in Uwajima in Ehime prefecture on the island of Shikoku as the son of poor farmers. As a young boy he wanted to become an artist and began with an art course by correspondance from Tokyo. He went to Tokyo and got a job delivering newspapers. Later he was supported and encouraged by Unichi Hiratsuka. After World War II he became famous and his prints are in the collections of such renowned museums like the British Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago. Umetaro Azechi was an avid mountaineer and many of his subjects show mountaineers and mountain landscapes in his typical style of simplified forms and flat colors.

VG, minor flaws