About This Print

"Hara has been working with the theme of 'strokes' since the 1970s. The strokes are paths of light, each one a range of intensities captured by Hara's magnificent technique of colour gradation."¹  His prints, exhibiting "flat coolness and perfect evenness"² at first appear to be silkscreens, but they are achieved through lithography "often involving many different printings"³ using the artist's "special technique with a method of applying the ink with huge rollers to give his work an element of unbelievable smoothness, lushness, and control."⁴

I was immediately drawn to Hara's work when it first came to my attention in 2007, seeing its indebtedness to traditional Japanese calligraphy in its movement while substituting a rainbow of saturated colors for the traditional black sumi ink. I find Hara's work cerebral, calming and continually interesting.

For this 1980 print, Hara has softened his usual white background with the addition of a subtle cream color which allows the strokes to float off the page.  


¹ Contemporary Japanese Prints: The Urban Bonsai, Jackie Menzies, Art Gallery of New South Wales1992, p. 29
² Ibid.
³ Contemporary Japanese Prints: Symbols of a Society in Transition, Lawrence Smith, Harper & Row Publishers, 1985, p. 28.
⁴ Collecting Modern Japanese Prints, Then and Now, Mary and Norman Tolman, Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1994, p. 126.

Print Details

IHL Catalog	#197
Title	Strokes 80-16
Artist	Hara Takeshi (b. 1942)
Signature	Takeshi Hara
Seal	embossed seal lower right corner
Publication Date	1980
Edition	12 of 100
Publisher	self-published
Printer	self-printed
Impression	excellent
Colors	excellent
Condition	excellent
Genre	contemporary lithograph
Miscellaneous
Format
H x W Paper	14 1/2 x 19 1/2 in. (36.8 x 49.5 cm) note: dimensions are of visible portion of framed print
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