Ladybug and Leaf

Description

Ladybug and Leaf (1984) by Yozo Hamaguchi is an Original Signed Mezzotint print in colors with full margins. From signed and numbered limited edition of 50.

Yozo Hamaguchi is widely regarded as one of the finest mezzotint artists in the history of the medium. Hamaguchi studied sculpture at the Tokyo Art School in 1927 but abandoned his studies in 1930 to go to France. After a return to Japan in 1939, Hamaguchi settled in Paris in 1953, during which time he produced copperplate etchings. From about 1955, he began producing black and white and color mezzotints. He was awarded prizes at the Sao Paulo Biennale and the first International Biennial Print Exhibition in Tokyo in 1957. His first solo exhibition, which comprised over 160 prints, was held in Japan, at the National Museum of Art in Osaka. Hamaguchi’s mezzotints and virtuoso works have led to the present day popularity of this technique.

Yozo Hamaguchi (1909-2000) is a printmaker widely known as the artist who gave a new life to mezzotint. In Japan, the print has occupied the important position as a field of art. We exhibit 60 works of Yozo Hamaguchi in two rooms. Tools and his original plates of color mezzotint are also on displayed so that it may help to understand his technique. Please visit and feel his meditative darkness and the transparent colors. We also invite other artists and hold the special exhibitions.

Mr. Hamaguchi trained as an artist in Japan and at 21 moved to Paris, where he mingled with the international group of artists and writers who enlivened the city in the 1920’s and 30’s. There he became friends with Cummings, who gave him tools for making mezzotints, engravings widely used in the 18th century to reproduce paintings but made all but obsolete by the advent of photography. Mr. Hamaguchi used the medium to produce a series of colored prints, the ”E. E. Cummings Suite.” His work was collected by museums internationally.