Wall AB

A distinguished third generation member of famous Yoshida family, Hodaka is the son of Yoshida Hiroshi (1876-1950) who was initially a Western-style oil painter but who decided to switch to prints. Hiroshi became his own publisher and employed some of the best woodblock carvers and printers. In his day he was the most successful of all Japanese print artists, especially in the USA where his picturesque landscapes were extremely popular.

When Hodaka, named after one of his father's favourite mountains, started to make prints around 1950, doing his own carving and printing, they were in an abstract style, for it was Western artists like Miro and Klee whose work interested him rather than the traditional landscape style of his father.

Since the 1950s he has travelled, taught and exhibited extensively throughout the world. He has always experimented with new techniques, continually enriching his superb craftsmanship with his own innovations and combinations. His more recent prints move between delicate abstractions and more representational landscapes. The subject of this print was the white wall around a residence on the outskirts of Nara, the old capital of Japan.

Jackie Menzies, Contemporary Japanese Prints: The Urban Bonsai, 1992, pg. 100.