Ohara Koson: By 1920 a Renaissance in the art of the Japanese woodcut had taken place. Termed 'Shin Hanga' (New Prints), artists of this movement reestablished the importance of the Japanese woodcut, particularly in the areas of landscape compositions and figure studies. At the centre of Shin Hanga was the Tokyo publisher, Watanabe Shozaburo (1885-1962). It was through his support and efforts that the greatest Shin Hanga artists such as, Goyo, Shinsui, Hasui, Koson, Koitsu and Shiro Kasamatsu gained both national and international recognition.
The most famous Shin Hanga designer of bird and flower prints ('kacho-e'), Ohara Koson studied Shijo school painting under Susuki Kason. Shortly after 1900 he accepted a teaching position at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. Koson's art came to the attention of Ernest Fenollosa, an important Japanese scholar and Curator of Japanese Art for the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Under Fenollosa's encouragement, Koson began exhibiting both his paintings and woodcuts in the United States. Most of his earlier woodcuts were published in Tokyo by either Kokkeido or Daikokuya.
In 1912 Koson changed his artist's name to Shoson. For approximately the next fourteen years he dedicated himself primarily to painting. In 1926, however, the great Shin Hanga publisher, Watanabe Shozaburo, convinced the artist to create woodcuts in both oban and otanzaku sizes. These original woodcuts are notable for their use of much brighter and more vibrant colours than his earlier prints.
During this period, Koson's art was much more popular in the United States and Europe than in Japan. Most of his Watanabe published woodcuts were in fact sent abroad. In Japan there was little interest in kacho-e designs until many years later, and thus when Japanese scholars and collectors began recognizing the genius of this great artist (c. 1970) they had to import his prints from the United States.
Canary and Roses is typical of Koson's finest kacho-e art. Using the dramatic black of night he highlights the wonderful form and colours of both the flowers and the canary.
