Contemporary Giclée Repro Print Ito Shinsui "Applying Powder" Bijin Taisho 1924 8"W

Itō Shinsui (伊東深水, 1898–1972) — Applying Powder (お白粉, Oshiroi) — archival giclee reproduction

Contemporary reproduction after original woodblock print, Taishō 13 (Spring 1924). Small er than original.

A semi-nude beauty (bijin) is seen from behind in three-quarter view, one arm raised gracefully to adjust a gold kanzashi in her upswept hair, the other extended at her side. The figure is rendered with minimal line against a cool pale blue ground, the warmth of flesh tones set against a dramatically patterned indigo and red obi and striped garment pooled below — a composition of exceptional elegance and economy. The print belongs to Shinsui's monumental series Twelve Forms of New Beauties (Shin bijin juni sugata), intended to be issued in editions of 200 with a new print each month for one year; the final print was delayed by the Great Kantō Earthquake of September 1923, and this impression — dated spring Taishō 13 (1924) in the right margin — represents that final, long-awaited release.

Publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō discovered Shinsui's work in 1916, kickstarting a twenty-five-year collaboration between the two figureheads of the shin-hanga movement. Shinsui's series of Twelve New Figures of Beauties is in the vein of earlier ukiyo-e bijin-ga (beauty prints), yet his figures are imbued with a fresh realism derived from Western-style painting that would become a hallmark of the shin-hanga style. Itō Shinsui was born in Tokyo in 1898 and studied under the master painter Kaburagi Kiyokata. His bijin-ga prints are held in the permanent collections of the British Museum, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Brooklyn Museum, LACMA, and numerous other institutions worldwide.

This reproduction is locally and professionally printed on acid-free archival fine-art paper using highly fade-resistant pigmented inks.

• Title: お白粉 (Oshiroi — Applying Powder)
• Series: Shin bijin juni sugata (新美人十二姿 — Twelve Forms of New Beauties), No. 12 (final)
• Artist: Itō Shinsui (伊東深水, 1898–1972)
• Original date: Spring, Taishō 13 (1924); publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō
• Medium: Archival giclée reproduction on acid-free fine-art paper, pigmented inks
• Dimensions: 8" W × 13" H (20 × 33 cm)

Condition: New.