Prints in Collection
Wind in the Body, 1955
IHL Cat. #132
IHL Cat. #1024
Passing Nun (Buddhist), 1958IHL Cat. #159
Nostalgia of Kyoto, 1960
IHL Cat. #1647
IHL Cat. #1533
Early Spring, 1963
IHL Cat. #200
Musician Greenwich Village, 1964IHL Cat. #238
Musician Greenwich Village, 1964
IHL Cat. #2240
Kyoto's Voice, 1964
IHL Cat. #239
IHL Cat. #287
Wind, 1964
IHL Cat. #422
Nest, 1965 (lithographic print)
IHL Cat. #720
Tea Ceremony, 1965
IHL Cat. #218
Work A, 1966IHL Cat. #189
IHL Cat. #190
IHL Cat. #2021
IHL Cat. #237
Spring Garden, 1974
IHL Cat. #225
IHL Cat. #224
Early Spring Garden, 1977
IHL Cat. #198
NIWA (Sunshine), 1978
IHL Cat. #281
NIWA (Winter Scenery), 1978
IHL Cat. #282
IHL Cat. #1471
IHL Cat. #1321
IHL Cat. #1098
Good by Winter, 1984
IHL Cat. #1060
NIWA (Movement) B2, 1985
IHL Cat. #604
The Letter (From Southern Italy),
1985
IHL Cat. #587
The Letter (From New York),
1985
IHL Cat. #586
NIWA (Nunnery), 1985
IHL Cat. #1692
Garden in Kyoto, 1986
IHL Cat. #607
Tokyo Tower from the seriesOne Hundred Views of Tokyo:Message to the 21st Century, 1990IHL Cat. #171
Biographical Data
ProfileTakahashi Rikio 高橋力雄 (1917-1998 December 23)![]() ![]() Rikio
Takahashi specialized
in depicting the forms of the Japanese garden, especially the classic
gardens of Kyoto. He was the son of a 'Nihonga' ("Japanese-style
painting") artist and from 1949-1955 became an important pupil of the
seminal figure in modern Japanese printmaking, Onchi Kōshirō (1891-1955),
whose late non-representational style had a significant influence. Takahashi studied at the Chouinard Art Institute [later to become integrated into the California Institute of Arts] in 1962 and 1963 and returned to the United States several years later to work with Ken Tyler at Tyler's renowned Gemini print studio. (See "Collaboration with Ken Tyler," below.)
Takahashi is one of the last true sōsaku hanga (creative print) artists. He successfully explored in an abstracted manner various forms found in gardens and nature. He is especially adept at the subtle partial overlay of one or more colors to create varied opacities and textures as well as complexity of shapes. Many of his prints evoke an atmosphere of stillness and balance that have a sense of timelessness. Takahashi's prints vary in size, with some reaching roughly three feet in height. |
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In the seventies, this marginal space
came to have more obvious structural features. First, a rigidly square
geometric form emerged, which had not been seen, but it was often
surrounded by empty space. These forms first appeared in the Niwa
series which was based on Kyoto motif, so I would guess that the square
represented a walled garden. If so, the delicate lines and planes,
which cluster around the square like theatrical props, probably
indicate trees, ponds, and rock formations in the garden. This
impression is reinforced by an amorphous form reminiscent of a single
Chinese character made with heavy brush strokes which is placed under
the square. It creates a balanced contrast with the square above it.
I see it as a symbol of the living, bustling city outside the enclosed
garden. This composition of a square and a ideograph was repeated in a
series of prints and became a definite structural pattern in
Takahashi’s work. |
Critical Comments
Source: Modern Japanese Prints 1912-1989, Lawrence Smith, British Museum Press, 1994, p. 62Takahashi, like many Japanese artists of the post-war era, found a theme and has kept to it, endlessly exploring and refining over more than forty years his prints inspired largely by the classic gardens of Kyoto. Unlike most, however, his concentration on virtually one theme has led to ever-greater depth and ease, each print very subtly yet unequivocally creating a different little world of colour and mood. These colours reflect not only the quiet tones of the gardens themselves but the almost imperceptible changes in light which the seasons bring. The same atmosphere is found even in his prints which do not refer specifically to gardens.
Source: Rikio Takahashi – Hangi no Bunjin, Lawrence Smith, in Rikio Takahashi, The Woodblock Prints, Abe Publishing LTD. (1998) pp. 12-13.
When one looks at Takahashi’s prints over four decades, there is also this constant sense of precision, as if he knew exactly what he wanted to achieve before he even began to cut the block. Takahashi’s main inspiration…is usually nature as enjoyed and lived in the typical Japanese setting of traditional architecture, gardens, and the seasons.
Takahashi is a man who produces one refinement after another upon a style he learned from his master, Koshiro Onchi. This is surely an attitude which belongs to calligraphy, and I have already noted the more literal echoes of brush and ink which are found in many of Takahashi’s prints. Yet beyond calligraphy, you feel in his work the constant love of the past, of gardens, of the changing seasons, and of silence and contemplation. Takahashi is in the final consideration a Bunjin (a scholar) – a Bunjin of the Woodblock.
Collaboration with Ken Tyler
Source: National Gallery of Australia website, "Artist Profile" by Gwen Horsfield, 2008 - http://nga.gov.au/InternationalPrints/Tyler/DEFAULT.cfm?MnuID=2&ArtistIRN=22711&List=True"Takahashi’s collaboration with Kenneth Tyler1 followed a strong tradition of artistic exchange between America and Japan in the post-war period. Titled Nest, the print in the NGA collection was produced at the Gemini workshop in 1965. It is representative of Takahashi’s typical mode of abstraction, with depth created by tonal layers and the image vaguely reminiscent of the natural forms Takahashi found so inspiring."
1 Source: National Gallery of Australia website http://nga.gov.au/InternationalPrints/Tyler/Default.cfm?MnuID=10
Tyler established the print workshop Gemini Ltd. in 1965 and set out to work with the very best artists of his day, promising them: ‘Here is a workshop, there are no rules, no restrictions, do what you want to do’
The Artist's Words - “On My Work”
Source: Reflections on the Path of Printmaking, Rikio Takahashi in Rikio Takahashi, The Woodblock Prints, Abe Publishing LTD. (1998) p. 197.It is impossible to speak about my work while looking at a book or photographic reproductions of it. It is like scratching a place that itches while wearing an overcoat. Flat printed reproductions are different from the actual work.
My prints are made with the water-based mineral pigments called suihi, which are used in Japanese-style painting, on handmade Japanese paper. The pigments are rubbed into the physical volume of the paper with a baren, and this produces an effect essentially different from a picture printed flat and clean with a machine. Also, the colors in the reproduction are always slightly different from those in the original.
All forms of Japanese culture are structured as a do, a way or path. The prescribed path must be taken to approach these practices – kendo (the way of the sword), judo (the soft way of wrestling), shodo (the way of writing), kado (the way of flowers), kodo (the way of incense), and sado (the way of tea.) However, there is no do in my work. I am hoping to convey something true, hopefully not something false or pretentious.
Bibliography
Catalogue Raisonné - Rikio Takahashi, The Woodblock Prints, Abe Publishing LTD. (1998)Images of a Changing World: Japanese Prints of the Twentieth Century, Jenkins, Donald, Portland Art Museum, 1983, p. 102 and 126.
Modern Japanese Prints 1912-1989, Lawrence Smith, The British Museum Press, 1994, p. 35-36.
The Japanese Print Since 1900: Old Dreams and New Visions, Lawrence Smith, The British Museum Publications Ltd., 1983, p. 119 and 129.
Catalogue Raisonné - Rikio Takahashi, The Woodblock Prints, Abe Publishing LTD. (1998)
Spine | Publishing Data |
Lawrence Smith (Keeper Emeritus of Japanese Antiquities - British Museum) Article p. 12 -13
click on above image to read article
Exhibitions
Paris, France--one-man show; CWAJ Exhibits, Tokyo, Japan--1962- 1997; Dusseldorf, Germany--one man show; International Print Exhibition Taipei, Taiwan--prize winner; San Diego, California--one-man show; Kyoto, Japan--one man show; Xylon International Woodblock Triennial, Switzerland--prize winner in 1984 & 1990; Japan Print Association, Tokyo; Krakow International Print Biennial, Poland; New York City--one man show; Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura & Hayama, January 2008 “Lyricism of the Woodcut Takahashi Rikio: Retrospective”; Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon, November 2018 through March 2019 "Three Masters of Abstraction: Hagiwara Hideo, Ida Shōichi and Takahashi Rikio."
![]() Takahashi Rikio (Japanese, 1927–1999)
Revelation, 1965
color woodblock print on paper
The Vivian and Gordon Gilkey Graphic Arts Collection, © Takahashi Rikio 91.84.814;
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This exhibition presents nearly fifty prints by three Japanese artists who rose to international prominence in the decades following World War II. All of them embraced abstraction, that most quintessential of Western modernisms, as a means for expressing fundamentally Japanese themes.
Hagiwara Hideo (1913–2007) combined abstract expression with imaginative approaches to traditional Japanese woodblock techniques to create prints of great visual depth. Winner of multiple international print exhibition prizes, Hagiwara taught printmaking at Oregon State University in 1967.
Takahashi Rikio (1917–1998) is known for his prints evoking Japanese gardens throughout the seasons, without ever depicting a plant or stone. Working almost exclusively in woodblock, he created images that convey stillness, balance, and a sense of timelessness.
Ida Shōichi (1941–2006) took abstraction to radically new levels. For him, the techniques of silkscreen, lithography, etching, and traditional woodblock printing were not instruments for creating images, but forces that act upon or emerge from the paper. In his reverence for the potential inherent in the materials, Ida harks back to aesthetic values of the Japanese tea ceremony and Mingei movement.
This exhibition draws upon prints in the Museum’s collection and from the Lavenberg Collection of Japanese Prints.
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