About This Print
Two women at their looms in these two second edition c. 1950 prints by the publisher Kyoto Hangain of the pre-WWII design originally released by Nishinomiya Shoin in 1940 as the fifth print in series two of Occupations of Shōwa Japan in Pictures.
Below are the translated artist commentaries for the first and second editions of the print, which show the shift in climate after Japan's defeat and occupation.
The below commentary accompanying the 1940 edition, is copied from Memories of Shōwa, as translated by the authors.3
[First Edition, 1940, published by Nishinomiya Shoin] The Female Weaver (Women at the Loom)
Weaving is one of the occupations I favor most for women. It is eminently suited to the domestic scene. In times past it was regarded as essential, especially in the country districts, that all should have some knowledge of the handicrafts of weaving and dyeing.
One of the chief reasons of recommending this art to women is that one of the peculiar virtues of weaving is the encouragement it affords for the discussion of individual tastes and interests. Furthermore, there is developed by application to this art a sincere appreciation of mathematical concepts and a sense of the value of spiritual constancy.
While they ply their looms their thoughts may turn to cherished ones far away and in peace of mind they may learn to appreciate more deeply the value of serenity and tranquil effort. Deft and abstracted notions which result in the production rich and valuable fabrics provide their own culture and discipline.
Finally, the shuttles of the loom as they hum back and forth recall the chorus of the birds and bring to mind once more the peaceful quality of early spring.
[Second Edition, c. 1950, published by Kyoto Hangain]
Women WeaversThe Japanese farmer from olden times has woven the cloth for his own use at home. In the leisure season for farmers, the women are busy while the men prepare fire-wood and charcoal.In some silk producing regions, they weave silk stuff for sale. This picture shows such a weaving scene in a farm house. - Painted by Sanzo Wada.Printed by KYOTO-HANGAIN CO., LTD
click on image to enlarge
1 Memories of Shōwa: Impressions of Working Life by Wada Sanzō, Maureen de Vries and Daphne van der Molen, Nihon no hanga, 2021, p. 14.
2 ibid.
3 ibid. p. 26.
A Critical View
Source: 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. 80.
After 1937, the war created a shortage of male labor and women were often hired to take the place of men although at far lower wages. Despite becoming invaluable to the work force, women were not represented as such in most popular art of the period. Tellingly, while women working in spinning mills were not depicted in woodblock prints, the old-fashioned weaver was the subject of representation. In Women Weavers (cat. 93) for his Occupations series, Wada Sanzō portrays these women not as part of the modern industrialized world but as members of a pre-industrial society. They are not factory workers but women casually working in a domestic setting. Once woman carries a baby on her back, underscoring the female’s maternal role. This depiction of the mother at work negates the dangerous and decidedly un-nurturing environments of most work places. In short, these women seem to labor of their own volition and in the spirit of craft rather than commerce. This image of women at work as it existed in the romanticized past is emphasized in Wada’s own comments accompanying the print:
“While they ply the loom their thoughts may turn to cherished ones far away and in peace of mind they may learn to appreciate more deeply the value of serenity and tranquil effort…. Finally, the shuttles of the loom as they hum back and forth recall the chorus of the birds and bring to mind once more the peaceful quality of early spring.”
In this print, Wada abjures the poverty, decrepit working conditions, and diseases characteristic of the spinning mills. By depicting weavers instead of factory workers, Wada camouflages the true conditions in the industrial environments and even denies their existence by using an image of two domestic weavers to represent the modern “occupation” of weaving.
First Edition and Chuban-size Reissue
As the original publisher Nishinomiya Shoin did, the post-war publisher Kyoto Hangain (the successor business to Nishinomiya Shoin) reprinted and reissued particular prints multiple times, resulting in a number of different print states. In addition, Kyoto Hangain reissued six of the original prints, including Women Weavers, in a smaller, chuban size (8 3/4 x 10 3/4 in.), edition as shown below. (Also see this collection's print Women Weavers from the portfolio Japanese Life and Customs A Set of Six Pictures.)
the publisher Kyoto Hangain. One of six chuban size prints
in the series Japanese Life and Customs.
IHL Cat. #1127
About the Series "Occupations of Shōwa Japan in Pictures"
Sources: website of Ross Walker Ohmi Gallery http://www.ohmigallery.com/DB/Artists/Sales/Wada_Sanzo.asp and website of USC Pacific Asian Museum "Exhibition - The Occupations of Shōwa Japan in Pictures: The Woodblock Prints of Wada Sanzō"
Note:
My special thanks to Shinagawa Daiwa, the current owner of Kyoto Hangain, for providing the below information (in a series of emails in July 2014) about Nishinomiya Shoin and Kyoto Hangain, both businesses started by his father Shinagawa Kyoomi. Shinagawa's current website can be accessed at http://www.amy.hi-ho.ne.jp/kyotohangain/
Wada’s major contribution as a woodblock print artist came through his 72 print 3-part series Occupations of Shōwa Japan in Pictures (Shōwa shokugyō e-zukishi), also translated as Occupations of the Shōwa Era in Pictures and Japanese Vocations in Pictures. The three part series was started during the Pacific War (1937-1945) in September 1938, was then interrupted by war shortages in 1943, and was restarted again after the war in January 1954. This series was a labor of love for Wada and he brought together woodblock print printers and carvers in Nishimomiya near Kobe to work on this project.
The war era prints were published by Wada through an old books store, Nishinomiya shoin 西宮書院 run by Shinagawa Kyoomi
品川清臣. Wada
planned a total of 100 designs, with two prints being issued each month. Wada's designs for the prints were rendered in watercolor and the finished prints beautifully captured the look-and-feel of those original watercolors. The series was an immediate hit, but was suspended after 48 prints (issued in two series) in 1943 due to war shortages.
After the war, the series was continued by the same publisher, Shinagawa Kyoomi, who had opened a new business in Kyoto, which he named Kyoto Hangain 京都版画院. (Shingawa's business in Nishinomiya had burned down during WWII.) At first Kyoto Hangain published re-prints of the earlier prints, but they went on to publish a third series of 24 prints, working closely with Wada, titled Continuing Occupations of the Shōwa Era in Pictures between November 1954 and September 1956.1 The post-war prints were popular with the Occupation's "deep-pocketed" military and civilian personnel and the series was "featured in an article of the Tokyo edition of the United States military newspaper Stars and Stripes."2 Shinagawa also published a six print portfolio in the 1950s titled Japanese Life and Customs, consisting of six of the prints from the earlier two series in a reduced chuban size, which is also part of this collection.
Occupations of the Shōwa Japan in Pictures has been praised for showing “the complexity of Shōwa society…. capture[ing] the pulse of Japanese life during the tumultuous decades of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s”3 and condemned as providing a “visual message of subtle or blatant propaganda in support of government-sponsored ideas.”4
It is interesting to see how the commentary, written by the artist, that accompanied each print in the pre-war releases was softened for the post-war re-issues by Kyoto Hangain. All references to soldiers being away from home (as Japanese armies were marching through Asia when the series was originally released) or references to Imperial Japan have been stripped away and the commentary becomes innocent, folk-like and appealing to the post-war occupying forces. (For example, see the prints Women Weavers and Picture Card Show which provide the artist's original commentary and a full transcript of the English text attached to the folders of the post-war re-issued prints.)
1 Keizaburo Yamaguchi gives the publication dates of the post-War series as January 1954 through autumn 1958. (Ukiyo-e Art 16, 1967): 39-42.
2 "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.
3 Pacific Asia Museum website http://www.pacificasiamuseum.org/_on_view/exhibitions/2004/occshowa.aspx
4 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.
2 "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.
3 Pacific Asia Museum website http://www.pacificasiamuseum.org/_on_view/exhibitions/2004/occshowa.aspx
4 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.
Print Details
| IHL Catalog | #1002, #1023 | ||
| Title/Description | 織女 [shokujo] - Women Weavers [number 5] | ||
| Series | Occupations of Shōwa Japan in Pictures, Series 2 (also seen translated as "Compendium of Occupations in the Shōwa Era" and "Japanese Vocations in Pictures") Shōwa shokugyō e-zukushi 昭和職業繪盡 (also seen written as 昭和職業絵尽し and 昭和職業繪盡し), dainishū (第二輯) | ||
| Artist | Wada Sanzō (1883-1967) | ||
| Signature | 三造 Sanzō | ||
| Seal |
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| Publication Date | c. 1950 (originally 1940) | ||
| Publisher |
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| Edition | A second edition of the print first published by Nishinomiya shoin in 1940. As originally issued my Nishonimiya shoin this print was the 5th in series 2. It is believed that all the pre-WWII woodblocks for this series were destroyed in Allied air raids in 1945 and that all post-WWII impressions by Kyoto Hangain, the business started by Daiwa Shinagawa the owner of Nishomiya shoin after WWII, were made from re-cut blocks. | ||
| Carver | |||
| Printer | Ōno 大野 | ||
| Impression | IHL Cat. #1002 - excellent IHL Cat. #1023 - excellent | ||
| Colors | IHL Cat. #1002 - excellent IHL Cat. #1023 - excellent | ||
| Condition | IHL Cat. #1002: good - minor wrinkling and toning IHL Cat. #1023: excellent - mounting residue verso top corners | ||
| Genre | shin hanga | ||
| Miscellaneous | originally released by Nishinomiya Shoin as print number 5 in series 2 | ||
| Format | dai-oban | ||
| H x W Paper | IHL Cat. #1002: 11 3/4 x 15 1/2 in. (29.8 x 39.4 cm) IHL Cat. #1023: 11 1/2 x 15 3/4 in. (29.2 x 40 cm) | ||
| H x W Image | IHL Cat. #1002: 10 3/4 x 14 3/8 in. (27.3 x 36.5 cm) IHL Cat. #1023: 10 1/2 x 14 3/8 in. (26.7 x 36.5 cm) | ||
| Collections This Print | Himeji City Museum of Art Ⅲ－184－5 (dated "1939～1940年"); San Diego Museum of Art 1965.77.r | ||
| Reference Literature | 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. 81, cat. 93; Memories of Shōwa: Impressions of Working Life by Wada Sanzō, Maureen de Vries and Daphne van der Molen, Nihon no hanga, 2021 |
hanmoto Kyoto Hangain suru Ōno
8/9/2021
12/5/2018
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