Onchi Koshiro

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Onchi Koshiro 恩地孝四郎 (1891-1955), born in Tokyo, was the father of the sosaku hanga movement in 20th Century Japan. Onchi came from an aristocratic family that had close connections with the imperial family. As a child, Onchi received the same kind of education that a prince received. Onchi was trained in both traditional calligraphy and modern western art. Between 1910 and 1915, Onchi studied oil painting and sculpture at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. In 1912, he founded the print and poetry magazine called “Tsukubae”.

Onchi was also a book designer in the early days when it was impossible for sosaku hanga artists to survive by just doing creative prints. He designed over 1000 books in his career. In 1939, he founded the First Thursday Soceity [Ichimokukai], which was crucial to the postwar revival of the sosaku hanga movement. The society held artist gatherings once a month in Onchi’s house. Members such as Yamaguchi Gen (1896-1976) and Sekino Junichiro (1914-1988) discussed subjects of prints. American connoisseurs Ernst Hacker, William Hartnett and Oliver Statler also attended. The Fist Thursday Collection [Ichimoku-shu], a collection of prints by members to circulate to each other, was produced in 1944. Through the First Thursday Society, Onchi provided young aspiring artists resources and comradeship during the war years when resource was scarce and censorship severe. After the war, Onchi emerged as the leader of the sosaku hanga movement that flourished in the international art scene.

[edit] Style and Technique

Onchi’s prints range from early representational prints to postwar abstract prints. Onchi, as an early advocate of the sosaku hanga movement, believed that artistic creation originates from the self. He is more interested in expressing subjective emotions through abstract prints, rather than replicating images and forms in the objective world. Onchi’s prints evoke lyrical and poetic mood. He says, “art is not to be understood by the mind but by the heart. If we go back to its origin, painting is expressed in color and form by the heart, and it should never be limited to a world of reflected forms captured by visual sense. Therefore, expression of the heart through color and forms separated from color and form in the real world is that true realm of painting. I will for the time call this type of work the ‘lyrique’”. Onchi also made artistic innovations by incorporating fabrics, string, paper blocks, fish fins, and leaves into his prints.