About This Print and the Folio
One of six chuban size (8 3/4 x 10 3/4 in.) prints issued as part of a portfolio of six prints titled Japanese Life and Customs by the publisher Kyoto Hangain. The portfolio was likely first issued in the early 1950s and the designs are replications of pre-WWII designs from the series Occupations of the Shōwa Era in Pictures (Shōwa shokugyō e-zukishi). As the prints are a smaller format than the original releases, new blocks would have been used.
As shown below, the portfolio carries the English title Japanese Life and Customs, but references the original series Occupations of Shōwa Japan in Pictures beneath it in Japanese (昭和職業絵盡) .
In commenting on the original 1940-1941 edition of this print and its idyllic depiction of farm life, Colette Dartnall writes:
"... Wada Sanzō's Farm Family....represents the calm and comfortable life of country family. The print depicts a mother breast-feeding her baby while her small son and daughter play nearby. The poverty typical of so man farmers is denied by the inclusion of a plethora of goods (such as the bicycle prominently placed in the foreground) and the suggestion of leisure indicated by the children at play and the seated mother. The radiant sunlight contributes to the atmosphere of warmth in rural family life. ... [H]owever, [this print is] far from complete in [its] portrayal of the nature of Japanese farm life during the war years. Illness, fatigue, and poverty are all absent and, thus, implicitly denied. The fragmentation of the household resulting from increasing industrialization, economic depression, and war is perhaps alluded to by the absence of men. Yet the primacy of women is more likely an effort to champion the value of women doing traditional work."1
click on image to enlarge
和田三造作 [a work by Sanzō Wada]
昭和職業絵盡 [Occupations of Shōwa Japan in Pictures]
三造 [Sanzō followed by 2 small rectangular seals in red]
中判 ["chuban" within gourd-shaped seal]
手摺木版画 六枝組 [handmade woodblock print, set of six]
版元 京都版画院 [publisher Kyoto Hanga In]
1 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. 79-80.
Print Details
| IHL Catalog | #1131 |
| Title/Description | Farming Family |
| Series | Japanese Life and Customs - A Set of Six Pictures |
| Artist | Wada Sanzō (1883-1967) |
| Signature | not signed |
| Seal | not sealed |
| Publication Date | c. 1950s |
| Publisher | Kyoto Hangain 京都版画院 |
| Printer | |
| Impression | excellent |
| Colors | excellent |
| Condition | excellent - lightly toned |
| Genre | shin hanga |
| Miscellaneous | |
| Format | chuban |
| H x W Paper | 9 1/4 x 11 1/8 in. (23.5 x 28.3 cm) |
| H x W Image | 7 15/16 x 9 1/4 in. (20.2 x 23.5 cm) |
| Collections This Print | |
| Reference Literature | |
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