Jun'ichirô Sekino was an artist interested in many kinds of traditional and modern art. While he admired the great Tôshûsai Sharaku (active c. 1794-95), he also benefited from his associations with Shikô Munakata and Kôshirô Onchi. He learned from European artists such as Rembrandt, Munch, Dufy, Lautrec, Zorn, and Kollwitz.

The most obvious influence upon Sekino's early portrait style was the artist, poet, and mentor Onchi (1891-1955), whom he first befriended in 1939 and from whom Sekino reported he had learned the "spirit of art." Onchi, although an independent arist in most respects, was a central figure in the 'sosaku hanga' movement from the 1930s until his death, and when looking at many of Sekino's large-format portraits one immediately recognizes elements of Onchi's style. We are reminded, in particular, of a seminal large-format portrait in sosaku hanga — Onchi's 1943 portrait of the tragic poet Hagiwara Sakutarô (1888-1942) — see image at lower left .

Sekino's connection with Onchi's design was a direct one. The post-war demand for impressions of the Hagiwara image was high, but Onchi had printed only seven or eight experimental impressions. Then, in 1949, Sekino printed an edition of fifty impressions more or less under Onchi's supervision (see the illustration below left for one of the impressions printed by Sekino). In addition, a posthumous memorial edition was commissioned by Onchi's family and printed in 1955 by Hirai Kôichi. Then in 1987, Onchi's son Kunio printed 10 more impressions from the original blocks.

A much-admired example of Sekino's own post-war approach to large format portraiture is illustrated in the figure on the top right, which depicts the kabuki actor Nakamura Kichiemon (1886-1954). Sekino became friends with Kichiemon during the war when the actor's kabuki troupe performed at a factory where Sekino was stationed. Although his portrait style was derived from Onchi's, Sekino used a somewhat "drier" and more controlled method compared to Onchi's own experimental, spontaneous, and "moist" approach. Sekino's technique, like Onchi's, involved soft edge overprintings (without keyblock outlines) of various shades of colors for the modeling of the face. It was a complex method requiring carved-out shallow depressions in the blocks and nuanced shading of pigments as he applied them to the blocks in multiple overprintings.

True to sosaku hanga principles, Sekino carved, printed, and published his portrait of Kichiemon. He needed 15 printing stages and used six plywood blocks of shina (basswood or Japanese linden), a soft wood with fine texture (compared to the traditional wood used for ukiyo-e printmaking, sakura or Japanese cherry, which was moderately hard). It is printed on torinoko paper, with the image extending close to the edges of the sheet, which measures 633 x 497 mm. This impression is from a second edition and is inscribed IIme état ("Second State"), numbered 16/100, and dated 1947.

Due to the complexity of printing and Sekino's own sense of experimentation, each impression of a Sekino portrait from this period varies somewhat in the choice and density of colors and the quality of chiaroscuro. He also reprinted these designs in small numbers for years afterwards (impressions of the Kichiemon portrait were made at least until 1977).

The figure in the top right corner of Sekino's design is derived from a famous portrait by Sharaku of the actor Tomisaburô Segawa I in the role of Yadorigi in the play Hana ayame Bunroku Soga ("The Iris Soga of the Bunroku Era") given at the Miyako-za, Edo, in 1794. The inclusion of Tomisaburô was, according to Sekino, meant simply to evoke the atmosphere of kabuki and to establish Kichiemon as an important descendant in a long tradition of illustrious actors. Sekino's portrait was one of about ten in large format made between 1946 and 1954, a stylistically coherent group of masterpieces in 20th-century Japanese printmaking. © 1999-2001 by John Fiorillo

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• McClain, Robert & Yoko: Thirty-six Portrait Prints by Sekino Jun'ichirô. Eugene: University of Oregon, 1977.
• Merritt, Helen: Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1956, pp. 178-199 and 239-242.
• Statler, Oliver: Modern Japanese Prints: An Art Reborn. Rutland & Tokyo: Tuttle, 1956, pp. 63-70 and 192-194.