Vintage Japanese Kappazuri Print Yoshitoshi Mori Bijin Playing Shamisen 1984 Ed 13/90

Yoshitoshi Mori (森義利, 1898–1992) — Bijin with shamisen (三味線美人) — kappazuri stencil print, 1984, edition 13/90

Shōwa period, dated 1984

A bijin sits absorbed in playing the shamisen, her head inclined downward, lips parted as if in song. She holds the neck of the instrument in her left hand and draws the bachi (plectrum) across the strings with her right — caught mid-phrase, her expression inward and focused. Her kimono is a deep black with blue geometric lining at the collar and red-and-grey pattern details at sleeve and hem; kanzashi pins secure an elaborate coiffure. As in all of Mori's bijin compositions, there is no ground or background — the figure is rendered as pure mass and silhouette, the bold outlines and flat color planes reading as much as textile design as figurative print. The shamisen player (三味線弾き, shamisen-hiki) was one of the most enduring subjects of ukiyo-e bijin-ga, associated with the pleasure quarters and theatrical culture of Edo. Numbered 13/50 lower right; signed Y. Mori '84 with red artist's seal lower left. Presented in a black wood frame with double mat and glass.

Yoshitoshi Mori (森義利, 1898–1992) was born in Tokyo and trained at the Kawabata School of Fine Arts before spending the early decades of his career as a textile designer and kimono fabric dyer. He did not turn to printmaking until nearly sixty, but went on to produce an enormous body of kappazuri (stencil-print) work that earned him an international reputation. Kappazuri substitutes hand-cut stencils for carved woodblocks, applying each color through a separate stencil — a technique rooted in traditional katazome textile dyeing. Mori's prints draw almost exclusively on traditional subjects — kabuki actors, courtesans, craftsmen, folk festival figures — rendered in his distinctive flat, bold, expressively distorted style. His work is held by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. In 1984 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Maryland. He continued exhibiting until shortly before his death in Tokyo in 1992.

• Title: Bijin Playing Shamisen (title unconfirmed)
• Artist: Yoshitoshi Mori (森義利, 1898–1992)
• Medium: Kappazuri stencil print on wove paper
• Date: 1984 (Shōwa 59)
• Edition: 13/90
• Dimensions (image): approx. 17.5" H × 11.75" W (44 × 30 cm); framed approx. 24" H × 20" W
• Condition: Please see photos for details.