About This Print

One of fifteen prints from the 1945 series Scenes of Last Tokyo.  This print was one of eight designs for the series which originally appeared in the 1929-1932 series Shin Tokyo hyakkei (One Hundred Views of New Tokyo).  (For an image of the 1929 release, see below.)  This 1945 print was made from recut blocks.  It is one of three designs that Onchi contributed to Scenes of Last Tokyo, the publication of which was orchestrated by him.

Source: The Artist's Touch, The Craftsman's Hand: Three Centuries of Japanese Prints from the Portland Art Museum, Maribeth Graybill, Portland Art Museum, Oregon, 2011, p. 299.
"Japan's oldest zoo, founded in 1882, was the site of tragedy during the war.  Fearing that the wild animals might escape and cause havoc in an air raid, bears, lions, and leopards were put to death in August 1943.  Later, as food supplies became increasingly scarce in Tokyo, the elephants were hidden from the public and starved to death.  The zoo's facilities were in ruins because the metal in the cages and guardrails had been requisitioned for military use.  It would take man years before the zoo again became a tree-sheltered park where children could view animals."

Source: Terrific Tokyo: A Panorama in Prints from the 1860s to the 1930s, Elizabeth de Sabato Swinton, Worcester Art Museum, 1999. P. 72.
One of Tokyo’s five original parks, Ueno not only contained Japan’s first art museum, but it also boasted the nation’s first zoo.  When tracks were laid from Tokyo Central Station to Ueno after the 1923 earthquake, the park became even more accessible to the crowds visiting its attractions.

Onchi captures the relaxed mood of a typical Sunday when city-dwelling parents and children came to enjoy the pleasures of the park-like setting of the Ueno Zoo and its numerous species of animals -–native and foreign.  [My note: Tempered, however, by the knowledge of the slaughter of zoo animals during the war.]

Print Details

IHL Catalog	#185
Title	Ueno Zoo  上野動物園 Ueno Dōbutsuen
Series	Scenes of Last Tokyo [also seen translated as Recollections of Tokyo]  東京回顧図会 Tokyo kaiko zue
Artist	Onchi Kōshirō (1891-1955)
Signature	unsigned
Seal	none
Date	originally 1929 in the series One Hundred Views of New Tokyo (ShinTokyo hyakkei). Again in 1945 using recarved blocks for the seriesScenes of Last Tokyo (Tokyo kaiko zue)
Edition	December 1945 (literature sometimes shows 1946 as publication date)
Publisher	Fugaku Shuppansha 富岳出版社, Tokyo, Uemura Masurō 上村益郎 publisher
Printer	Hirai Kōichi 平井孝一
Impression	excellent
Colors	excellent
Condition	good - removed from folio after receipt to stop further toning; verso tonedfrom contact with original folder;   paper remnants on top corners versoas a result of removal from folio.
Genre	sosaku-hanga (creative print)
Miscellaneous	Reprintedfor this series from recut blocks of original 1929 image published aspart of the series One Hundred Views of New Tokyo (Shin Tokyohyakkei).
Format	chuban
H x W Paper	7 7/8 x 10 3/4 in. (20 x 27.3 cm)
H x W Image	7 1/4 x  9 1/2 in. (18.4 x 24.1 cm)
Collections This Print	Worcester Art Museum, Members’ Council Fund, 1987.79.3; Carnegie Museum of Art 89.28.709.11; The British Museum 1980,1127,0.18.8; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 60.38; Mead Art Museum at Amherst College 2008.63.8; Smithsonian Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery S1995.118.6; Portland Art Museum 1996.31.2h
Reference Literature	The Artist's Touch, The Craftsman's Hand: Three Centuries of Japanese Prints from the Portland Art Museum, Maribeth Graybill, Portland Art Museum, Oregon, 2011, p. 299; Terrific Tokyo: A Panorama in Prints from the 1860s to the 1930s,Elizabeth de Sabato Swinton, Worcester Art Museum, 1999. p. 70; JapanesePrints During the Allied Occupation 1945-1952, Lawrence Smith, British Museum Press, 2003 (see figure 41)