Kawase Hasui Giclée Repro Print "Dusk at Nakaso" Ibaraki Coast 1954 10x15

Kawase Hasui (川瀬巴水, 1883–1957) — Nakaso no yu (勿来乃夕 — Dusk at Nakaso) — archival giclee reproduction

Contemporary reproduction after original woodblock print, 1954 (Shōwa 29); publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō

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

Against a layered dusk sky — bands of coral, lavender, and pale teal above a luminous horizon — a grove of coastal pines rises in dark silhouette. The sea below is a wash of cool blue-grey, its surf just visible at the shore. In the foreground, two figures make their way home along the coastal path: a woman bent under a large woven basket, a man beside her carrying a frame pack, both in the plain working dress of rural postwar Japan. The composition earns its drama through contrast — the weight and mass of the pines against the openness of sea and sky, the warm glow of the horizon against the cool depth above, and the small human forms anchoring a landscape of considerable scale. The left margin inscription reads 勿来乃夕 (Nakaso no yu — Dusk at Nakaso) with the date 昭和二十九年作 (Shōwa 29, 1954); Hasui's signature and seal appear lower right.

Nakaso, on the Pacific coast of Ibaraki Prefecture, was one of the three great barrier gates of ancient Michinoku (Ōshū Sanseki) and appears repeatedly in classical waka poetry — its name carrying associations of longing and travel. By Hasui's late period, coastal evening subjects such as this had become among his most refined: figures scaled small against the natural world, light reduced to its essential gradations. Hasui was born in Tokyo and trained under Kaburagi Kiyokata before launching his landmark collaboration with publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō in 1918. Over four decades he produced more than 600 landscape designs, traveling ceaselessly throughout Japan to sketch from life. In 1956 he was designated a Living National Treasure.

• Title: 勿来乃夕 (Nakaso no yu — Dusk at Nakaso)
• Artist: Kawase Hasui (川瀬巴水, 1883–1957)
• Original date: 1954 (Shōwa 29); publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō
• Reference: Hotei catalogue no. 600
• Medium: Archival giclee reproduction on acid-free fine-art paper, pigmented inks
• Dimensions: 10" W × 15" H (25 × 38 cm)

Condition: New giclée on #120 textured matte paper