Hasui, Kawase (1883 – 1957), “Irises (Limited Edition)”

Notes: First Edition, paper limitation label on the reverse; sealed with red Hasui chop; and numbered in black ink. "Made in Japan", stamped on the reverse. Copyright seal in lower right margin. Seal of printer (Komatsu) and carver (Maeda) in lower left margin. Properly stored and never framed or displayed. A SCARCE, SELDOM SEEN FIRST EDITION. Provenance: From a private East Coast collection. For the past 25 years the prints were properly stored away, with many removed from their original studio folders. "Prints by Sakai and Kawaguchi such as Irises have a decided different feel from those pieces produced with Watanabe, perhaps in response to the varying interests of the publisher and as a result of working with different carvers and printers. Stylistically, this print is atypical of Hasui's work: first, in its composition of a purely floral, rather than landscape, theme, and secondly in the magnified treatment of the subject, in which the colorful blooms of the irises seem to burst out of the picture plane. It belongs to the rare category of Hasui's bird-and-flowers prints as do the few extant prints of beauties, actors, and even war prints". Hasui's collaboration with publishers other than Watanabe such as Sakai and Kawaguchi occured from 1929 to 1932. It has often been speculated that the principal reason for Hasui's association with other publishers seem to have been economic. At this time, Hasui was building a new house in Magome and the extra expenses incurred him to look for additional income". - The New Wave; pg. 145-146