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| Kōshirō Onchi | |
|---|---|
| Name | Kōshirō Onchi |
| Birth date | 1891 |
| Birth place | Tokyo, Japan |
| Death date | 1955 |
| Occupation | Printmaker, artist, teacher |
Kōshirō Onchi was a Japanese printmaker, photographer, and theorist central to the sōsaku-hanga movement in twentieth-century Japan. As a founder of the First Thursday Society and a mentor at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, he influenced generations of printmakers, critics, and photographers during the Taishō period and Shōwa period. Onchi's work bridged traditional ukiyo-e aesthetics and modernist currents from France, Germany, and the United States.
Born in Tokyo in 1891 into a merchant family, Onchi studied at the Kōtō Kōgei Gakkō before enrolling in the Tokyo Higher Normal School. He encountered early influences from collectors and critics associated with the Nihon Bijutsuin and the Bunten exhibitions, and he attended lectures at institutions linked to the Ministry of Education (Japan). During his youth he encountered prints by Katsushika Hokusai, Utagawa Hiroshige, and paintings by Kubo Shunman in private collections and museums such as the Tokyo National Museum, stimulating his interest in print media. Exposure to European modernists including Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and Wassily Kandinsky came through exhibitions tied to the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts and translated theory circulating among circles connected to Nihonga and Yōga artists.
Onchi began his professional career contributing to magazines associated with the Tokyo Art Club and the Mavo group, and he published essays in journals linked to Chūōkōron and Kokka. In the 1920s he organized print activities with contemporaries from the Shirakaba circle and artists informed by the Blue Rider and the De Stijl movements. He launched the influential print series and portfolio projects that drew support from patrons allied with the Imperial Household Agency and collectors connected to the Mori Art Museum lineage. During the 1930s and 1940s Onchi navigated tensions between state cultural policy under Hideki Tōjō and avant-garde networks that included members of Mavo, Sōbi, and the New Tendency (Germany). After World War II he resumed activities tied to rebuilding cultural institutions like the Japan Art Academy and contributed to exhibitions at venues such as the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.
Onchi's style synthesized influences from ukiyo-e masters and European modernists including Paul Klee, Giorgio de Chirico, and Kazimir Malevich, emphasizing mood, abstraction, and textural innovation. He pioneered experimental use of paper, pigment, and hand-finishing, combining techniques derived from woodblock printing traditions with methods inspired by collage practices associated with Dada and Surrealism. His prints often employed multiple blocks, varied registration, and burnishing influenced by printmakers linked to the Atelier 17 network and the École de Paris. Onchi's photographs and photograms referenced procedures practiced by Man Ray and László Moholy-Nagy, while his tonal subtleties recall approaches used by Shin-hanga artists such as Hiroshi Yoshida and Hasui Kawase.
As a vocal advocate for artist-centered production, Onchi played a leading role in defining sōsaku-hanga principles alongside figures like Un'ichi Hiratsuka, Munakata Shikō, and Sōsaku-hanga Group. He helped found the First Thursday Society (Ichimokukai), organizing salons that connected artists, critics, collectors, and publishers including Watanabe Shōzaburō and galleries such as the Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi exhibition spaces. Onchi authored manifestos and essays debated in periodicals read by members of the Art Association of Japan and influenced policies at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. Through portfolios and collaborative projects he advanced rights of artists to design, carve, and print their own works, intersecting with international dialogues at events like the Venice Biennale and exchanges with publishers from France and Britain.
Among Onchi's acclaimed series are prints from the "Voice" and "Lyric" portfolios, created with editions distributed through contacts in Osaka and Kyoto and shown at venues such as the Nichido Gallery and the Pan Pacific Festival. Signature prints—often untitled in translation—feature abstracted landscapes, memory fragments, and poetic notations that resonate with collectors at institutions like the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the British Museum. His series paralleled works by contemporaries in international print revival movements, including those by Edvard Munch, Suzanne Valadon, and Gustav Klimt, and were cited in catalogues raisonnés circulated by critics associated with Asahi Shimbun and Yomiuri Shimbun cultural pages.
Onchi taught and lectured at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts and mentored artists who later achieved recognition, linking him to pupils associated with the Japan Print Association and the Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Modern Art collections. He collaborated with poets and writers from the Shirakaba and Proletarian Literature circles, working with publishers like Iwanami Shoten and photographers connected to the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum. His salons included exchanges with sculptors, painters, and printmakers from networks tied to Tōkyō Bunka Kaikan and the Society for the Study of Modern Art, fostering cross-disciplinary projects with figures associated with Sadajirō Yamanaka-era collecting and postwar curatorial initiatives.
Onchi's legacy is preserved in major collections including the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Retrospectives have been mounted at institutions such as the Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, often paired with exhibitions on sōsaku-hanga and modern Japanese printmaking that include works by Kawase Hasui, Hiroshi Yoshida, and Un'ichi Hiratsuka. His theoretical writings continue to be studied alongside scholarship by critics at universities like Tokyo University, Kyoto University, and Waseda University, and his influence is cited in contemporary practices among printmakers exhibiting at the International Print Biennale and regional museums across Asia and North America.
Category:Japanese printmakers Category:20th-century Japanese artists