Japanese wood block prints

JAPANESE WOOD BLOCK PRINTS

Japanese Wood Block Prints

DONOR: FAMILY OF JOAN MARY CORRIGAN

Japanese Wood Block Prints

The Corrigan Collection. Gallery Mezzanine, M2.

Although an alumna of All Hallows Convent, Joan Corrigan’s association with Brisbane Girls Grammar School was founded when her nieces attended here as students from the late 1950s until the early 1960s. As noted in the plaque above, Joan Corrigan had a distinguished career working alongside General Douglas MacArthur from 1946 in Japan. Her interest and expertise in Japan no doubt stimulated her interest in Japanese art forms, notably wood block printing. The beautiful suite of wood block prints gifted to the school by her family are an important and valued part of the Fine Arts Collection.

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Yoshida Hiroshi (1876-1950)

Japan

Hiroshi Yoshida was a 20th-century Japanese painter and woodblock printmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the shin-hanga style, and is noted especially for his excellent landscape prints. Shin-hanga ( 新版画 , lit. "new prints", "new woodcut (block) prints") was an art movement in early 20th- century Japan, during the Taishō and Shōwa periods, that revitalized the traditional ukiyo-e art rooted in the Edo and Meiji periods (17th – 19th century). Hiroshi began his artistic training with his adoptive father in Kurume, Fukuoka prefecture . Around the age of twenty, he left Kurume to study with Soritsu Tamura in Kyoto, subsequently moving to Tokyo and the tutelage of Shotaro Koyama. Yoshida studied Western-style painting, winning many exhibition prizes, and making several trips to the United States, Europe and North Africa selling his watercolors and oil paintings. In 1902, he played a leading role in the organization of the Meiji Fine Arts Society into the Pacific Painting Association.

While highly successful as an oil painter and watercolor artist, Hiroshi Yoshida turned to woodblock printmaking upon learning of the Western world’s infatuation with ukiyo -e.

JOAN CORRIGAN

Yoshida Hiroshi (1876-1950)

Japan

Title: Omuru

Medium: Woodblock Colour Print

Dimensions: 26 x 38.5cm framed in black wood.

Date: c1930s

Seal within image, characters on side margin, signature right hand side in pencil in lower margin.

Gift of the family of Joan Mary Corrigan.

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Yoshida Hiroshi (1876-1950)

Japan

Title: Kenhata

Medium: Woodblock Colour Print

Dimensions: 26 x 38.5cm framed in black wood.

Date: c1930s

Seal within image, characters on side margin, signature right hand side in pencil in lower margin.

Gift of the family of Joan Mary Corrigan.

Yoshida Hiroshi (1876-1950)

Japan

Title: Benton Shrine

Medium: Woodblock Colour Print

Dimensions: 26 x 38.5cm framed in black wood.

Date: c1930s

Seal within image, characters on side margin, signature right hand side in pencil in lower margin.

Gift of the family of Joan Mary Corrigan

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Yoshida Hiroshi (1876-1950)

Japan

Title: Two scenes of waterfalls

Medium: Woodblock Colour Print

Dimensions: 26 x 38.5cm framed in black wood.

Date: c1930s

Seal within image, characters on side margin, signature right hand side in pencil in lower margin.

Gift of the family of Joan Mary Corrigan

Yoshida Hiroshi (1876-1950)

Japan

Title: Sunsets

Medium: Woodblock Colour Print

Dimensions: 26 x 38.5cm framed in black wood.

Date: c1930s

Seal within image, characters on side margin, signature right hand side in pencil in lower margin.

Gift of the family of Joan Mary Corrigan

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Yoshida Hiroshi (1876-1950)

Japan

Title: Cicada

Medium: Woodblock Colour Print

Dimensions: 26 x 38.5cm framed in black wood.

Date: c1930s

Seal within image, characters on side margin, signature right hand side in pencil in lower margin.

Gift of the family of Joan Mary Corrigan

Yoshida Hiroshi (1876-1950)

Japan

Title: Two Crows

Medium: Woodblock Colour Print

Dimensions: 26 x 38.5cm framed in black wood.

Date: c1930s

Seal within image, characters on side margin, signature right hand side in pencil in lower margin.

Gift of the family of Joan Mary Corrigan

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Yoshida Hiroshi (1876-1950)

Japan

Title: Cottage and trees in snow

Medium: Woodblock Colour Print

Dimensions: 26 x 38.5cm framed in black wood.

Date: c1930s

Seal within image, characters on side margin, signature right hand side in pencil in lower margin.

Gift of the family of Joan Mary Corrigan

Yoshida Hiroshi (1876-1950)

Japan

Title: Black Birds in Flight

Medium: Woodblock Colour Print

Dimensions: 26 x 38.5cm framed in black wood.

Date: c1930s

Seal within image, characters on side margin, signature right hand side in pencil in lower margin.

Gift of the family of Joan Mary Corrigan

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Yoshida Hiroshi (1876-1950)

Japan

Title: Japanese Houses covered in snow

Medium: Woodblock Colour Print

Dimensions: 26 x 38.5cm framed in black wood.

Date: c1930s

Seal within image, characters on side margin, signature right hand side in pencil in lower margin.

Gift of the family of Joan Mary Corrigan