Flowers, Birds

Catalog note / 解説

When he was young, Hatsuyama Shigeru was an apprentice, first to a goldsmith and then to a textile dyer. In 1919 he began working as an illustrator for a children's magazine. Over the next 20 years, he created a number of illustrations for both adults and children. Hatsuyama started making woodblock prints as a hobby in the late 1920s. When he was pressured to make propagandistic illustrations during the war, Hatsuyama abandoned illustrations and devoted himself to woodblock printmaking. His prints, often fanciful, provided a welcome escape from the sobering real life issues of war, defeat, and social unrest. (2009)