Original Toshi Yoshida Woodblock Print Pine Friendly Garden Framed 31"H

Toshi Yoshida (吉田遠志, 1911–1995): “Pine” (松, Matsu) from “The Friendly Garden Series” — Limited Edition, Franklin Mint Commission, 1980; pencil-signed in kanji; framed in Japanese-style frame

Japan; 1980

A color woodblock print by Toshi Yoshida (吉田遠志), the eldest son of the legendary shin-hanga master Hiroshi Yoshida (吉田博, 1876–1950) and himself one of the most accomplished and widely exhibited Japanese printmakers of the twentieth century. “Pine” (松, Matsu) is the left-hand panel of the three-print triptych “The Friendly Garden” — the only triptych Toshi Yoshida ever produced — commissioned by the Franklin Mint in 1980 and published and printed by the Yoshida Studio in Tokyo. The composition presents the Yoshida family garden: a dramatically arching mature pine dominates the foreground, its gnarled trunk rising against a recession of layered evergreens in deep blue-green, a golden-leafed deciduous tree at right, a timber-framed pavilion with paper shoji screen, a stone-edged garden pond crossed by a flat granite bridge, rounded azalea mounds, boulders, and — at the lower foreground — a pair of mandarin ducks resting at the water’s edge. The snow-capped peaks of a distant mountain, almost certainly Mount Fuji, are visible through the canopy. The impression is very fine, with skillful bokashi (gradated color) shading throughout, and colors are strong. The print is pencil-signed in Japanese kanji in the lower left — reads 吉田遠志 (Yoshida Toshi) — with the artist’s red seal below the signature. Nineteen woodblocks were carved to produce the series.

Toshi Yoshida (1911–1995) was born in Tokyo as the eldest son of Hiroshi Yoshida and his artist mother Fujio, and grew up in the Yoshida studio learning oil painting and woodblock techniques from the age of fourteen. Hiroshi Yoshida was a pioneer of the shin-hanga movement, which revived the traditional ukiyo-e printmaking tradition by combining its collaborative studio system — in which distinct specialists carved the blocks and pulled the impressions — with the atmospheric realism of Western landscape painting. Toshi occupied a more complex artistic position: he is associated with both the shin-hanga and sosaku-hanga (creative print) movements, and his career traced a long arc from working within his father’s studio and aesthetic framework through a period of abstract and non-objective printmaking in the 1950s and early 1960s, and back to a mature shin-hanga naturalism in the final decades of his life. He joined the Nihon Hanga Kyokai and Graphic Arts Club after his father’s death in 1950 and for a period produced non-objective abstract prints in large format, before returning to shin-hanga in the 1960s with realistic renditions of subjects in nature. Tōshi Yoshida (吉田 遠志) +4

The Friendly Garden series represents Toshi Yoshida at his most personal. The prints depict the Yoshida family garden and constitute the only triptych the artist ever produced. Each of the three prints in the limited edition series commissioned by the Franklin Mint was framed in teak and matted in pure silk, on hand-pulled high quality Japanese paper. At the time of original release in 1980, each print was priced at US$150. The three subjects — Pine (松), Bamboo (竹), and Plum (梅) — together evoke the traditional East Asian motif of the “Three Friends of Winter” (歳寒三友, suikan no sanyū): plants celebrated for enduring through cold and adversity, symbols of resilience, integrity, and the perseverance of beauty. The “Pine” panel stands equally well as an independent composition and as the anchor of the complete triptych. Toshi Yoshida Friendly Garden Wood Block Prints, Set of Three +2

Toshi Yoshida is represented in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and other major institutions. He co-authored with Rei Yuki the influential reference work Japanese Printmaking: A Handbook of Traditional and Modern Techniques (Tuttle, 1966), which remains a standard reference in the field. This print was produced at the Yoshida Studio in Tokyo using the traditional mokuhanga (木版画) technique of water-based color woodblock printing — a process requiring hand-carved blocks, hand-mixed pigments, and hand-pulled impressions on dampened washi paper, the bokashi gradation achieved by varying the moisture and pigment load on the block at the moment of impression. osakaprints

• Artist: Toshi Yoshida (吉田遠志, 1911–1995)
• Title: “Pine” (松, Matsu)
• Series: The Friendly Garden — left panel of triptych
• Publisher/Printer: Yoshida Studio, Tokyo
• Commission: Franklin Mint, 1980
• Blocks: 19 woodblocks carved
• Signature: Pencil-signed in kanji lower left: 吉田遠志 (Yoshida Toshi); red artist’s seal below
• Impression: Very Fine; skillful bokashi shading throughout
• Condition: Appears excellent; strong colors; not examined outside frame
• Dimensions: Image 9⅞″W × 20⅛″H; frame 15¾″W × 30⅝″H overall
• Frame: Japanese-style frame (see photos)
• Period: 1980, Showa era