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KOBASHI, Yasuhide
(1931-2003) 		Self-construction
- Porfolio of six woodblock prints -

Signed:             Yas. Kobashi in pencil
Titles:                Each print pencil titled in English.
Published:         1958
Size:                    c. 33 x 24 cms / c. 13" x 9. 5", each print)


Condition:
Excellent impression, color and condition. Set comes in a blue folder,
inscribed Kobashi, each print is in a mat, protected by tissue paper.
Rare early work.

ref. no.: # 702481
Price:    € 1,800.00
                                             CLICK on any of the pictures below for its larger version.

Colophon
Oliver Statler's intro
Man in a Flurry
Night of the Carnival
Blue Finger Print
Tornado
Night Cat
Family
Kobashi Yasuhide (1931-2003) was born into an artistic family, with his father being a recognized ceramic artist and head of the Kyoto Industrial Craft Company. As a young man he was exposed to a wide range of arts, including sculpture, stage design, carpentry, stone cutting, ceramics, calligraphy, painting, and furniture design. Most notably, he studied woodblock printmaking under Hiratsuka Un'ichi (1895-1997), one of the leading innovators in the Creative Print (sosaku-hanga) movement that advocated total artistic control by a single artist over the entire printmaking process, in contrast to the traditional methods of ukiyo-e in which designer, carver, printer, and publisher all had their role in the production process.

Kobashi graduated from the Kyoto College of Crafts and Textiles in 1955, and four years later moved to New York, where his art took on a decidedly international perspective. Kobashi made artworks in a wide variety of media, and it were his sculptures that quickly attracted the attention of New York collectors. He called his three-dimensional work self-constructing sculpture, and focused on moveable compositions that could be arranged into an ever-changing variety of combinations. - These sculptures were subject of many of his woodblock printed works, as presented in this portfolio of six prints.

OLIVER STATLER, scholar, expert on sosaku hanga and author of the influential book listed below, wrote an introduction to the artist and his work, which is part of the portfolio.

Reference:
Honolulu Museum of Art
Yasuhide Kobashi at WIKIPEDIA
Oliver Statler, "Modern Japanese Prints: an art reborn", (Rutland/Tokyo, 1956)

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