Modern Japanese Print Makers

Western forms of art had been slowly influencing Japanese art since the expansion of trade from the late 1850’s and vice versa. Japanese prints were highly prized in Europe. European print makers visited and were taught the traditional form of wood block printing, This exchange of art forms worked both ways.

It was from the 1950’s, with the expansion of western culture in Japan, that Japanese printmakers began to expand into traditional western print making techniques such as etching, engraving and eventually screen printing in the 1960’s. In the 1950’s Japanese artists became more individual in their forms of expression and in 1952, Japanese print maker Munakata won the first prize at the San Paulo Biennale.

By the 1960-1970’s Japanese print makers visited Europe ateliers. But with the emergence of Abstract painting in the USA , Japanese artists began to focus their attention to America where a number of their colleagues had began to live and work, becoming part of the art scene in the USA.

From the 1970’s, as Japanese print makers became more confident on the international stage, they began participating in Biennales world wide. The Japanese traditional form of wood block printing had not disappeared, but different forms of print making had expanded.

Many of the prints by Japanese print makers we have listed, were former students of Birgit Skiold who ran a printing studio in London in the 1970’s until her death in 1982.

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