Hideo Hagiwara - Master of the Japanese Contemporary Woodblock Printing
«Hideo Hagiwara is a master of the Japanese contemporary woodblock printing technique and one of the best known Japanese artists of the 20th century. He employs a broad variety of printmaking techniques including woodblock, lithograph, etching and stencil. Born in Kofu City, Yamanishi Prefecture in 1913, Hideo Hagiwara lived in Korea and Manchuria during his early years. After returning to Japan in 1929 he studied oil painting at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts from which he graduated in 1938. While in school he briefly studied woodblock printing with Hiratsuka Un'ichi (1895-1997), a major figure in the sosaku hanga (creative print) movement. He spent the first 20 years of his career as a painter (and continued to paint throughout his career), but during his recuperation from tuberculosis (1953-1955) he took up woodblock printing. In 1958 he began to explore abstraction and began employing innovative and experimental printmaking techniques. „
