Takahashi Shōtei

Takahashi Shōtei
高橋松亭
Snow on Ayase river (1915), now in the collection of the Rijksmuseum
Born	1871 Tokyo, Japan
Died	11 February 1945
Nationality	Japanese
Known for	woodblock prints co-founder of the Japan Youth Painting Society

Takahashi Shōtei (高橋松亭), born Hiroaki (1871 – 11 February 1945) was a 20th-century Japanese woodblock artist in the shinsaku-hanga and later shin-hanga art movements.

Biography

Hiroaki Takahashi was born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1871. As a young artist he was given the artistic name Shotei by his uncle, Matsumoto Fuko, under whose tutelage he was apprenticing. When he was 16 years old, he started a job with the Imperial Household Department of Foreign Affairs, where he copied the designs of foreign ceremonial objects. As with many Japanese woodblock artists over his lifetime he signed his work with various names and worked for several publishing companies. After studying art, Shotei and Terazaki Kogyo founded the Japan Youth Painting Society in 1889. In 1907, as a successful artist, he was recruited by Watanabe Shōzaburō to contribute shinsaku-hanga (souvenir prints) in Japan. Watanabe helped to fulfill the Western demand for newly-styled ukiyo-e woodblock prints which would be similar to familiar historical masters of that genre, especially Hiroshige. In about 1921 Shotei added the artistic name of Hiroaki. In 1923 the Great Kanto earthquake (and subsequent fire) destroyed Watanabe's facilities; this included all woodblocks. Thus, Shotei recreated prior designs destroyed in the Great Kanto earthquake and produced new woodblocks in the shin-hanga style. Shotei died of pneumonia on February 11, 1945. There is a persistent rumor that he died in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima but this is incorrect.

His works are held in the permanent collections of many museums worldwide, including the British Museum, the Princeton University Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the University of Michigan Museum of Art, the National Museum of Asian Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Arizona State University Art Museum, the Brunnier Art Museum, the Honolulu Museum of Art, and the Saint Louis Art Museum.

Gallery

• 
  Shinagawa, from the series "8 views of the South of the Capital", 1921
• 
  White Cat, 1924
• 
  Rats and Radishes, 1926
• 
  Bridge over waterfall, between 1924 and 1927
• 
  Junks in Inatori Bay, Izu, 1926
• 
  Playing with a cat, 1930
• 
  Figure with Snow Falling

See also

• Hasui Kawase

Further reading

• Shimizu, Hisao The Publisher Watanabe Shozaburo and the Birth of Shin-Hanga in Water and Shadow: Kawase Hasui and Japanese Landscape Prints edited by Kendall Brown, Hotei Publishing, 2014. ISBN 9789004284654
• Shimizu, Hisao Syotei (Hiroaki) Takahashi: His Life and Works, Folk Museum of Ota City, Tokyo, 2005.
• Smith, Lawrence. The Japanese Print Since 1900, Harper & Row Publishers Inc., New York 1983, ISBN 0064301303
• Smith, Lawrence. Modern Japanese Prints 1912–1989. New York, London, Paris: Cross River Press, 1994.
• Till, Barry. The New Print Movement in Japan. Pomegranate Communications, Reprint 2007, ISBN 978-0764940392

External links

• Shotei's Cats
• MFA.org Museum of Fine Arts - Boston, MA, Search on Shotei
• Shotei.com Continuing analysis of Shotei's Catalogue with emphasis on pre and post Great Kanto Earthquake versions.
• Shin hanga — Viewing Japanese Prints, by John Fiorillo
• Hiroaki Takahashi Shotei's Cats
• Shotei's works in the collection of the National Gallery of Art