TAKEHISA YUMEJI • 冬日山景 • 日本木版画 - 日本 - 20世紀

Artist: Takehisa Yumeji (竹久夢二, 1884–1934)
Title: Mountain in Winter
Series: 竹久夢二木版画集 — Takehisa Yumeji's Woodblock Prints Collection
Technique: Woodblock print (mokuhanga), polychrome with soft bokashi shading
Date: c. 1978–1980 (after an early-20th-century Taishō painting design)
Publisher: Kyoto Hanga-in (京都版画院)
Format: Large format — ca. 45.9 x 34.6 cm
Signature & Seals: Title inscribed and Yumeji signature with red seal at lower left; series title and publisher seal (京都版画院版) in the margins; carver and printer seals at left
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IMPRESSION & COLOUR

A clean impression with quiet, naturalistic colour — pale snow-fields set against a heavy grey sky streaked with bands of muted red-brown, the whole carrying genuine wintry atmosphere. The graded sky tones are nicely registered.

PAPER & CONDITION

Excellent. The sheet is intact.
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The Scene

This is an uncommon subject for Yumeji, who is so closely identified with his beauties that his landscapes are easily overlooked. Yet he sketched widely on his travels, and a winter mountain scene of this kind shows the more painterly, atmospheric side of his hand — a point of interest for collectors who know him chiefly through his women figures.
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The Series

Between roughly 1978 and 1980 the Kyoto publisher Kyoto Hanga-in (京都版画院) issued a set of twenty large-format woodblock prints drawn from Takehisa Yumeji's designs, carefully printed to capture the subtle colours and delicate shading of his original illustrations. Each sheet carries the series title and the publisher's information in the margin. This example arrives in its original printed folder.
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Takehisa Yumeji — Poet of the Taishō Beauty

Takehisa Yumeji (1884–1934) was the leading artist-illustrator of Japan's Taishō era, and a poet and songwriter besides. His romantic portraits of slender, languid young women — drawn with expressive line and a wistful, almost childlike air — were enormously popular, and he designed prints, covers, and illustrations for newspapers, women's magazines, and books. The look became known simply as "Yumeji-style" beauty.

There was little interest in his work abroad during his lifetime, but in the decades since his death Yumeji's images have been keenly sought by collectors. A museum devoted to him stands in Okayama, his birthplace.