It is unclear whether Wada had created woodblock prints prior to this series, but he was certainly well-familiar with the genre through his early association with Kanae and his work with the yōga artist and printmaker Ishii Hakutei (1882-1958). At an unknown date after WWII (although one source supposes a date of c. 1930s) he authored the book The Steps in Wood block Printing: Maiko-san, published by Kyoto Hangain which includes sixteen woodblock prints taking the reader through the process of creating the print Maiko-san shown below.  While most of his post-WWII prints were published by Kyoto Hangain, including two prints depicting the seven lucky gods, a print of the imperial palace, two portraits of dogs, and various prints depicting Kyoto-area life, he also created a series of prints titled Life of Kyoto, consisting of six prints, published by the little known publisher Miyawaki Bifu Ōgi. 

Modern Japanese society and culture is often imagined in dramatic conflict between western-style modernity and enduring tradition. This tension emerged in the Meiji era (1868-1912) and continues today, but was most pronounced during the early Shôwa period (1926-1989). This was a time when the nation rejected European values as part of war ideology, then enthusiastically re-embraced western culture during the Allied Occupation of 1945-52.

The complexity of Shôwa society is glimpsed in two series of color woodblock prints designed by painter Wada Sanzô (1883-1967): The Occupations of Shôwa Japan in Pictures first published in a 48-print series between 1938 and 1941; and the 24-print Continued Occupations of Shôwa issued from 1954 to 1956. These images capture the pulse of Japanese life during the tumultuous decades of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. In the words of their publisher Shinagawa Kiyoomi, this is truly the “ukiyo-e of Shôwa.” 

Wada was uniquely qualified to capture the contradictions of modern Japan. Trained in academic oil painting, Wada was an establishment artist, painting for the Imperial family, government and military, teaching at the prestigious Tokyo School of Fine Arts, and serving as co-president of the Artist’s Patriotic League from 1943-45. Wada also explored Asian artistic traditions, studying textiles in India and Kyoto, and ending his career by painting in the native nihonga style and designing tapestry theater curtains. Wada’s pioneering color research resulted in his winning an American Motion Picture Academy Award in 1955 for color costume design for the film Gates of Hell.

Wada was noted for his figure drawing and luminous color—qualities wonderfully displayed in his prints. Prints from his watercolor originals display the refined technique of Japanese woodblock printing. Wada’s prints also raise vital issues about the qualities of Japanese society and culture that allowed the nation to quickly adjust from anti-western militarism to pro-American reconstruction. Wada’s Occupations series suggest that a focus on everyday life — whether with new “western” trends, remnants of traditional culture or a synthesis of the two — provide a critical link between war-era nationalism and the commodification of traditional Japanese life basic to post-war “Americanization.” 

USC Pacific Asia Museum presentation is the first time the two Occupation series will be shown in their entirety. Exhibited alongside some of the images are the brief essays that Wada wrote for them. In addition, the show will include some of Wada’s various post-war prints showing traditional customs of Kyoto, and his three-postcard series Sketches of G.I. in New Japan.

All of the prints, lent by a local collector, were originally assembled by Richard Miles, a long-time friend of USC Pacific Asia Museum. The exhibition is curated by Kendall H. Brown, specialist in modern Japanese prints and a professor of art history at California State University, Long Beach.

¹ Spectacles of Authenticity: The Emergence of Transnational Entertainments in Japan and America, 1880-1905, Hsuan Tsen (A dissertation), August 2011, Stanford University.
² International Futurism in Arts and Literature, Günter Berghaus, Walter de Gruyter, 2000. Series: European cultures, v. 13, p. 250.
³ I have seen two dates given for the start of his teaching, 1927 (Japan wikipedia) and 1932 (Merritt, Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints.) 
⁴ Politics and Culture in Wartime Japan, Ben-Ami Shillony, Clarendon, 1981, p. 119; Light in Darkness: Women in Japanese Prints of Early Shōwa (1926-1945), Kendall H. Brown et. al., Fisher Gallery, University of Southern California, 1996 p. 18-19.
⁵ "As in the realm of politics, the patriotic mood generated by an all-out war, on top of the repressive measures of the government, created a remarkable consensus in the fields of thought, literature, and the arts. In a country like Japan, where the group values of loyalty and harmony were still considered very important, there was less need of coercion in order to line up the intellectuals, the writers, and the artists behind the nation in arms than there was in other countries." - Politics and Culture in Wartime Japan, Ben-Ami Shillony, Clarendon Press, 1991, p. 119-120.
⁶ Nature of the Beasts: Empire and Exhibition at the Tokyo Imperial Zoo, Ian Jared Miller, University of California Press, 2013, p. 103-104.
⁷ Books on Colour Since 1500: A History and Bibliography of Colour Literature, ed. Roy Osborne, University
Publishers, 2013, p. 133.
⁸ Japan Digest, Volume 7, 1955, p. 30.
⁹ Hanshan Tang Books, London List 165 www.hanshan.com/pdf/l65.pdf
¹⁰ Keizaburo Yamaguchi gives the publication dates of the post-War series as January 1954 through autumn 1958. (Ukiyo-e Art 16, 1967): 39-42.
¹¹ "Out of the Dark Valley: Japanese Woodblock Prints and War, 1937-1945," Kendall H. Brown,p. 82 appearing in Impressions, The Journal of the Ukiyo-e Society of America, Inc., Number 23, 2001.
¹² Pacific Asia Museum website http://www.pacificasiamuseum.org/_on_view/exhibitions/2004/occshowa.aspx
¹³ op. cit., Light in Darkness, p. 18.