The textbook that introduced Japanese colour woodblock prints to the world was published in 1939 under the English title *Japanese Wood-Block Printing*. It was written by Yoshida Hiroshi, a Japanese painter and woodblock artist who had spent half his professional life painting watercolours and oil paintings before having his first printing block carved. His life began on 19 September 1876 in Kurume on the southern island of Kyushu, where he was born as Hiroshi Ueda; he had borne the name Yoshida since 1891, when his art teacher, Kasaburo Yoshida, adopted him. In the 1890s, he studied European-style painting, first in Kyoto, then at the private Fudosha School in Tokyo.
In 1899, he took a risk based on this training. Together with his fellow painter Nakagawa Hachiro, he set sail from Yokohama for America, with one-way tickets, travel money for a month, and his own watercolours in his luggage. A fire broke out on board during the voyage; both the men and the paintings survived. In the very same year, the Detroit Museum of Art exhibited 92 of his watercolours, and the city’s residents purchased Yoshida’s large painting ‘Memories of Japan’ for the museum through a public fundraising campaign for 500 dollars. An exhibition in Boston in early 1900 raised nearly 3,000 dollars; this was followed by the World’s Fair in Paris and, in 1904, a bronze medal in St Louis. The young Japanese artist had learnt Western painting and successfully sold it back to the West.
He did not take up woodblock printing, his country’s traditional printmaking technique, until he was 44. In 1920, he designed his first prints for the publisher Watanabe Shozaburo; in 1923, the Great Kanto Earthquake, which devastated Tokyo, destroyed the publisher’s workshop along with the printing blocks. Yoshida subsequently travelled through America and Europe once more, returned in August 1925 and became independent of publishers. He set up his own workshop and, in keeping with the Japanese printing tradition, employed his own carvers and printers under his strict supervision; Sheets whose printing he personally supervised bear the ‘jizuri’ seal, meaning ‘self-printed’. His prints underwent an unusually high number of colour passes, averaging around thirty, and in some cases approaching a hundred. For ‘The Plum Gate’ from 1935 - a courtyard gate in Ome near Tokyo featuring a blossoming plum tree - he himself stated that it required 14 blocks and 55 passes; some blocks were therefore inked multiple times and reprinted.
This effort is most evident where light falls on water. In ‘Kagurazaka Street at Night, After the Rain’ from 1929, a print from the series ‘Twelve Scenes of Tokyo’, a deep-blue night sky hangs over a shopping street; lanterns and illuminated signs hang against the darkness of the wooden façades, a fruit stall glows orange, and the entire row of lights is reflected as a jagged shimmer on the wet pavement. The rain has passed, and the street continues to act as a mirror. ‘Sarusawa Pond’ from 1933 brings the same idea into the light of day. Above the pond in Nara rises the five-storey pagoda of Kofukuji; willow branches hang into the picture, and the pagoda is reflected a second time in the pale water. And ‘The Golden Pavilion (Kinkaku)’, also from 1933, places the temple in Kyoto by the pond in such a way that its reflection in the greenish water fills the lower half of the page.
He explored the locations for these prints on foot. Yoshida was a passionate mountaineer and spent nearly half the year on sketching trips; around 1930, a long journey took him as far as India and South-East Asia, resulting in 32 prints. His most productive year, however, was 1926, with 41 prints, including series on the Seto Inland Sea, the Japanese Alps and Mount Fuji. That same year saw the creation of ‘Kumoi Cherry Trees’, a print of enormous proportions for a woodcut, measuring 58.4 by 74.5 centimetres, which had to be divided into three blocks due to its size; around fifty prints were produced from it. The model for this was a 27-year-old work, the watercolour ‘Memories of Japan’, which Detroit had purchased in 1899. The print depicts women beneath blossoming cherry trees on Mount Yoshino in the moonlight.
The art prints based on these sheets are produced by Meisterdrucke using the giclée process, at the highest resolution and with deliberate care taken over the printing process. This stands in contrast to Yoshida’s working method - which involved dozens of passes over a single motif - with a process that also takes its time.
Yoshida printed his last woodcut in 1946; in 1947, the Taiheiyo Gakai artists’ association elected him as its president. In the spring of 1950, he undertook a final journey to Izu and Nagaoka, after which he returned to Tokyo, where he died on 5 April 1950. What he had built up remained within the family. His wife Fujio was a painter; his sons Toshi and Hodaka both became woodblock artists; he had named the younger son, born in 1926 during his father’s most productive year, after his favourite mountain, Hotaka.
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.jpg "Kagurazaka Street at Night, After the Rain by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "The Sarusawa Pond by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Twelve Scenes of Tokyo: Kagurazaka Street after a Night Rain by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1071143).jpg "The Golden Pavilion by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1312539).jpg "Eight Scenes of Cherry Blossoms: Spring Rain by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1071109).jpg "Kumoi Cherry Trees by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Plum Gateway by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Tomonoura by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Autumn in Hundred Flower Garden at Muko-Jima, c1900-1950 by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "The Castle of Osaka by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Moraine Lake by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Eight Scenes of Cherry Blossom: Arashiyama by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Evening in Nara, from the series \"Kansai District\" by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Nakabusa River Rapids by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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_from_the_series_Twelve_Scenes_of_Japanese_Alps_(_-_(MeisterDrucke-1071111).jpg "Goshiki Mountains, from the series \"Twelve Scenes of Japanese Alps\" by Yoshida Hiroshi")
_from_the_series_Twelve_Scenes_of_Japanese_Alps_(_-_(MeisterDrucke-1071111).jpg)
.jpg "Calm Wind by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "New Moon by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1071097).jpg "Grapes and Apples by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Shokozan by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Unzendake by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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_from_the_series_Europe_-_(MeisterDrucke-1071089).jpg "Sphinx - Night, from the series \"Europe\" by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Spring Rain by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Waterfall by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Lugano Town by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Hirosaki Castle, from the series \"Eight Views of Cherry Blossoms\" by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Sankeien by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Kagurazaka Street after a Night Rain by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Tone River by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Suzukawa by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Kamogawa in Kyoto by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Carp and Tortoises by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Sarusawa Pond by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Arashiyama, from the series \"Eight Scenes of Cherry Blossoms\" by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Waiting for the Tide by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Golden Pavilion by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1071125).jpg "Sarusawa Pond by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Koko by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Tateyama Betsuzan, from the series \"Twelve Scenes of Japanese Alps\" by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Calm Wind by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "The Castle of Hirosaki by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "The Aquarium, Honolulu by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Wisteria by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Yoshikawa by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Yomei Gate by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1071068).jpg "Toshogu Shrine (Toshogu) by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Dainan Gate in Mukden by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "The Hirakawa Bridge by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Misty Day in Nikko by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "The Cherry Tree in Kawagoe by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1071081).jpg "Ellora, Cave Temple No. 3 by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Bamboo Wood by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Seta Bridge by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1071107).jpg "Snake Charmers by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Abuto in the Morning, from the series \"Abuto\" by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Evening on the Chikugo River by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1071101).jpg "Mount Hodaka by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Nabeshima by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "A Little Temple Gate by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Shalimar Garden, Lahore by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Diabutsu Temple Gate by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Child by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Kura in Tomonoura by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Camping at Washibadake by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "The Sankei Park by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Kameido Bridge, Tokyo by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1342127).jpg "Ancient Ruins of Athens (Acropolis — Night) by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Lugano Town by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Autumn in the Hyakka-en by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "The Takinoo Shrine by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Way to the Kasuga Shrine by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "The Inland Sea by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Yozakura in Rain by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Eboshidake by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Ikenohana by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Azalea Garden by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1071092).jpg "Ghat in Benares by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Calm Waters of the Northern Sea: Mount Rishiri by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Nigatsudo Temple by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1071122).jpg "Great Temple in Madura by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "The Niagara Falls by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "A Spa in Spring by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Gion Shrine Gate by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1071110).jpg "Udaipur Castle by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Fujiyama from Miho by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1071090).jpg "A Little Restaurant at Night by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "A Market in Mukden by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Obatan Parakeet by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Fuji from Musashino by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "Cryptomeria Avenue by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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.jpg "The Kiso River, from the series \"Hotei #85\" by Yoshida Hiroshi")
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