Japanese Woodblock Print, 1965, 1st Edition, numbered 76/150 in the bottom margin, published by Kato Junji

SIZE IN INCHES: oban, 16 x 11.5 inches

NORIYUKI USHIJIMA (1900-1997) was born in Kumamoto and graduated at the Western painting division of the Tokyo School of Fine arts in 1928. Before WWII he was mainly known as a painter, exhibiting at the Teiten; in 1946 he contributed a print to set of Ichimokushu and to the Nihon Hanga Kyokai exhibition in the same year. For that exhibition he used the name Ushijima Ken.He became a professor at the Tokyo University of Fine Arts, ánd he continued making woodblock prints, particularly a series of six semi-abstract landscape prints, published c.1965 by Kato Junji (of Nihon Hanga Kenkyusha). This is one of the prints from that set.

In 1983 he received the order of Cultural Merit. He died of respiratory failure in September 1997, aged 98. In 2004 a large retrospective exhibition of his works was held at the Fuchu Museum of Art.

Fine, no flaws