Artist: Ansei Uchima
Title: Tranquillity- Blue
Date: 1959
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Japanese Art Open Database
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Thursday, 5 May 2005 Abstract Japanese Woodblock Print by Uchima/Noguchi Era "Tranquillity: Blue" by Modern Master/Ansei Uchima 1959 Fine Japanese woodblock print by well-listed Japanese-American artist, Ansei Uchima (1921-2000). This print is done on antique white hosho handmade paper and is unmounted and unframed. The print measures 12.5" x 15.25" (sheet size). The work is signed, titled, numbered, and dated in Japanese and English, in pencil by the artist, on the lower border under the image (see photos): Tranquillity: Blue - 33/50 - A. Uchima, 1959 Ansei Uchima is an important Japanese-American artist and is listed in many art references including Davenports Art Reference; Who Was Who in American Art; A Spectrum of Innovation: Color in American Printmaking 1890-1960, and many others. Here is a of this artist: Ansei Uchima (1921-2000) American. Ansei Uchima was born at Stockton, California in 1921. He grew up in Los Angeles and in 1940 went to Tokyo to study architecture at Waseda University. He soon gravitated towards painting, which he pursued under the tutelage of several Japanese masters. His paintings won awards at the prestigious Jiyu Bijitsu Art Association annual exhibitions of 1953 and 1954. He was introduced to the art of the Japanese woodblock in 1954 by American serviceman, Oliver Statler, a Japanese print collector who was interviewing printmakers in order to obtain information for a book he was writing about sosaku-hanga. Uchima served as Statler's translator and so in that capacity, he met the most famous artists, watched them work and became enchanted with the art and process of woodblock printing. His woodcuts were exhibited in 1957 and 1960 at the Tokyo International Print Triennials and he shared an exhibition at the Yoseido Gallery with the sculptor Masayuki Nagare in 1957. He returned to live in the United States in 1959. In 1960, nine of Uchima's prints were exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago landmark exhibition: Japan's Modern Prints. After 1955, many of Uchima's woodcuts were printed on paper made especially for himby Ichibei Iwano, in the village of Imadate-cho. Iwano had been named a Living National Treasure of Japan for his fine papermaking skills. Ansei Uchima became an esteemed modernist woodblock print artist. He had over 40 solo exhibitions during his liftime and wrote a book about his experiences and techniques, titled, "Thirty Years: My Journey With Woodblocks" (1982). His abstract woodblock prints in the Japanese tradition are in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Whitney Museum, all in New York City, the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, the Wright Museum of Art in Beloit, Wisconsin, the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco-DeYoung Museum, and many other museums around the world. His works have been exhibited in many exhibitions of modernism, including shows with Toshiko Takaezu, Isamu Noguchi and other well-known artists. His works are held in important collections of contemporary Japanese prints and modern art. Ansei Uchima was a member of the Japan Print Society and a fine arts professor Emeritus faculty member at Sarah Lawrence College, where he taught from 1962 to 1982. He also taught at Columbia University and was a recipient of Guggenheim Fellowships in 1962 and 1970. After a long and productive creative life, Ansei Uchima died in New York City at age 79, on May 9, 2000.