Yozo hamaguchi wikipedia

Hamaguchi was born in Hirogawa , Wakayama Prefecture , Japan to an upper-class family. Additionally, one of Yozo's ancestors, Kansuke Hamaguchi , was a Nanga painter during the late Edo era. From an early age, Hamaguchi desired to pursue a career in the arts instead of the family business. He entered the Tokyo Art School now Tokyo University of the Arts in to study sculpture, but left in to pursue an independent career.

Throughout the s, Hamaguchi lived in Paris where he studied oil painting , watercolor , and copperplate printing. Eventually, Hamaguchi became more intent on a career as an oil painter and regularly created sketches and preparatory drawings for his planned paintings. During this period, Hamaguchi met and befriended the American poet e.

Cummings , who soon became a great admirer of his sketches. Cummings remarked on the beauty of Hamaguchi's work and added they had the potential to become more aesthetically pleasing in print form. Shortly thereafter, Hamaguchi was introduced to the mezzotint medium after Cummings gifted him with a set of intaglio tools. In , Hamaguchi tried his hand at mezzotint and produced his first image, Cat , in which the titular subject is shown reclining with its front paw extended in an indiscernible white space.

Hamaguchi's newfound artistic inspiration in Paris was interrupted by the start of World War II in , and he subsequently returned to Japan. Over the course of the s and s, Hamaguchi further refined his mezzotint style and became a popular figure among Japanese art collectors as mezzotint was not yet familiar in Japan and was still considered a predominantly Western medium.

Deemed a pioneer, the art world's enthusiasm for Hamaguchi's prints resulted in his first solo exhibition at the Formes Gallery in Tokyo in Hamaguchi returned to France in to market his prints in the Parisian art scene. By then, the majority of his new works were monochrome copperplate etchings executed in gray, black, and white such as Gypsies The year was a pivotal year in Hamaguchi's career as he revitalized mezzotint as a modern art medium and developed his signature style.

Originally completed in black and white, Hamaguchi began to insert vibrant colors into his mezzoint prints that imbued them with an energetic liveliness. Roofs of Paris was one of Hamaguchi's first colored mezzotints, and the innovativeness of his style is evident in the windowless rectangular and trapezoidal buildings that appear stacked or positioned in seemingly infinite rows.

He employed non-localized colors as chimneys and edges of the roofs are depicted in blue, white, and light brown hues over blackened structures. Every building appears to emerge from a blackened void, which is a recurring visual motif that pervades most of the prints Hamaguchi later completed. Hamaguchi's success led to his participation in countless art exhibitions and major art festivals around the world for the remaining decades of his life.

Yozo hamaguchi wikipedia

Hamaguchi had the prestigious honor to serve as a representative of the Japan Pavilion in the Venice Biennale. After some time spent at Tokyo University of the Arts—where he studied sculpture—Yozo Hamaguchi headed to France to study fine arts, before having to return to Japan on the eve of the Second World War, and being enlisted to participate in the Pacific War.

He returned to Paris in with his wife, poet and artist Keiko Minami. Black manner is a complex intaglio engraving technique through which a wide range of black tones can be created. Yozo Hamaguchi paid homage to him 50 years later with the series e. Although his family maintained a shoyu production business dating back to the early Edo period, Hamaguchi chose instead to enroll at the University of Arts in Tokyo in After three years, however, he dropped out to study oil painting, watercolors, and copper-plate engraving in France.

During his studies in Paris, Hamaguchi also learned to produce mezzotint prints, which mimicked certain qualities in oil paintings with a velvet texture and finely graduated tones. The completion of this small and humble space is the most wonderful reward for me as an artist. Having spent many years working with mezzotint techniques, each works carries its own set of memories and is invaluable to me.

This art museum will display works from my earlier years to my more recent pieces. I hope that the younger generation studying prints will take the time to visit my collection, and I look forward to the development of a new generation of print artists.