Japanese Woodblock Print, 1937, published by Shozaburo Watanabe; from the series Twelve Sights of Oshima Island

SIZE IN INCHES: oban, 11.5 x 17 inches

ITO SHINSUI (1898-1972) was born "Hajime" at Fukugawa in downtown Tokyo on February 4, 1898. His family initially enjoyed the economic benefits of the Sino-Japanese War boom, but while he was in elementary school, their fortunes changed and Shinsui had to leave school to work, first at a sign shop and then as a factory hand at the Tokyo Printing Company. Shinsui's talent in drawing and painting led him to an apprenticeship in the design section of the company in 1911, and through its senior staff he was introduced to Kaburagi Kiyokata (1878-1972), a genre artist known particularly for his images of beautiful women. Kiyokata is credited with elevating the traditional ukiyo-e genre to a legitimate category of modern nihonga painting. On taking the aspiring young painter (Hajime) under his wing, Kiyokata have him the art name Shinsui.

Oshima Island, in Sagami Bay, is about sixty miles south of Tokyo. In the Edo period (1603-1868), the Tokugawa shogunate sent convicts into exile on Oshima. The epicenter of the Great Kanto Earthquake of September 1, 1923, was deep beneath this island. Publication of The Twelve Views of Oshima Island began in 1937, marking the end of sixteen years during which Shinsui designed no landscape prints. His return to this genre must have been successful, since there are at least two editions of this series. He continued to design landscape prints for Watanabe well after World War II.

Good, with flaws as shown