COLLECTING JAPANESE PRINTS FEATURED SOSAKU HANGA ARTIST

Yoshida Hodaka

1926 - 1995

Yoshida Hodaka was a second-third generation sosaku hanga artist, born in 1926 in Tokyo, Japan. The son of renowned artist Yoshida Hiroshi, Yoshida Hodaka enjoyed experimenting with painting as a child but quickly lost interest. His father, dismayed, felt that the boy was destined for a career in science rather than art. Additionally, he wanted at least one family member to hold a stable job during Japan's economic downturn. Hiroshi enrolled his son in university preparatory courses, however midway through the program, Hodaka experienced a sudden revival in his artistic interests. But unlike his father or even his elder brother Toshi, he was drawn towards abstraction. 

Diametrically opposed to soft oil paintings, watercolors, and hanga, abstraction was a hard left turn from the family tradition. Yoshida would often spirit himself away to the family attic, armed with oils and canvases, to create abstract works for local competitions. After winning a prize at the Taiheiyoshow (date unknown), Yoshida (Senior) was finally compelled to acknowledge his son's talents. By twenty-four, he had begun producing prints utilizing a technique combining woodblock and drypoint (scratching designs on celluloid to produce the blocks). Like his father, Yoshida went on to travel extensively throughout the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. In 1952, he joined the Nihon Hanga Kyokai organization and became a member of the Art Club and Graphic Art Club. Five years later, Yoshida taught woodblock techniques at the University of Hawai'i, Oregon, and the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in southern Maine. In the latter half of his career, Yoshida was exhibited at the Tokyo Biennale, Lugano, Ljubljana, Krakow, Frechen, and Ibiza. Some of his most notable abstract works include Night (1954), Buddhist Statues (1954), and Woods (1955).