Original Japanese Woodblock Print Wada Sanzo "Aviator" 1940 #10 in Occupations Series LS#082

Sanzo Wada (1883–1967)
Sketches of Occupations in the Showa Era
(昭和職業絵尽し, Shōwa Shokugyō E-zukushi)

Wada Sanzō — 昭和職業絵盡し　飛行士 (Shōwa Shokugyō E-zukushi: Hikōshi) — 1940

A striking print from Wada Sanzō's landmark series documenting the occupations of Showa-era Japan, this subject — the aviator (飛行士, hikōshi) — captures a moment of quiet drama on a military tarmac. Four figures occupy the foreground: a suited civilian, two aviators in flight suits and leather helmets with goggles, and a fourth in a pale hat, gathered around a document or briefing sheet. Behind them, a propeller aircraft sits on the airfield attended by ground crew rendered in pale, receding tones; a second aircraft passes overhead in ghostly silhouette against a luminous grey-blue sky. The composition is masterfully weighted — the crisp, economical figural group in the foreground anchoring the atmospheric wash of aircraft and airfield behind. Wada's characteristic technique is fully in evidence: broad, confident color areas with graduated washes that read more like gouache or watercolor than conventional woodblock printing, the muted palette of khaki, navy, and sandy earth entirely appropriate to the military aviation subject.

The Hikōshi subject places this print squarely within the wartime context of the series' first run. Aviation was among the most prestigious and romanticized professions in late 1930s and early 1940s Japan, and Wada's treatment is neither propagandistic nor sentimental — simply observational, in keeping with the documentary spirit of the series as a whole. The series was described by its publisher Shinagawa Kiyoomi as "the ukiyo-e of Showa" — a record of Japanese working life in one of its most turbulent decades. Wada Sanzō (1883–1967) studied Western-style painting at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, graduating in 1904, and refined his technique through seven years of study in Europe from 1907 to 1914. Back in Japan he became a central figure in the national art scene, teaching at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts and serving as a member of the Imperial Arts Academy. The Shōwa Shokugyō E-zukushi series, begun in 1938 and published by Nishinomiya Shoin, comprises 48 prewar prints interrupted by the Pacific War in 1943; a postwar continuation of 24 further designs followed from 1954 to 1958. Wada later received the American Motion Picture Academy Award in 1955 for costume design for the film Gates of Hell and the Order of Cultural Merit in 1958. His prints are held in the British Museum, the National Museum of Modern Art Tokyo, and the Fukuoka Art Museum, among others.

• Title: 飛行士 (Hikōshi — Aviator/Pilot)
• Series: 昭和職業絵盡し (Shōwa Shokugyō E-zukushi — Sketches of Occupations in the Showa Era), No. 10
• Artist: Wada Sanzō (和田三造, 1883–1967)
• Publisher: Nishinomiya Shoin
• Date: 1940
• Format: Polychrome woodblock print (mokuhanga)
• Matted: 18.25" x 14.5"H

Condition: Excellent. Colors fresh and strong, margins intact, no foxing, toning, or losses. Signed Sanzō (三造) with two red seals lower right.

A rare and historically resonant subject from one of the most important documentary print series of the Showa period — the aviator print among the most visually compelling and collectible subjects in the E-zukushi canon.