Watanabe: Japanese Print Envoy

In the first decades of the twentieth century, Shozaburo Watanabe started his publishing business, hiring a new generation of artists and craftsmen to create Japanese prints in the time-honored tradition of Hokusai and Hiroshige. To identify his prints Watanabe coined the term “shin hanga” or “new prints.” Like the prints of the previous century, the prints would be colorful images of Japan’s people and natural beauty. However, rather than planning for an all-Japanese audience, Watanabe actively courted the international market, touring his prints in the United States, and making the prints more appealing to foreign buyers by, for instance including the artist’s name and title in roman letters.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.