Japanese Woodblock Print, late Showa era, published by Kato Junji

Japanese Woodblock Print, late Showa era, published by Kato Junji

Size with out frame 14 x 20 cm

Size framed 31 x 24 cm

TAKEHISA YUMEJI (1884-1934), was a leading figure in the Taisho Romanticism movement which combined Western romanticism with native Japanese styles during the Taisho Period (1912-1926). He was a painter, writer, poet, bookbinder and illustrator whose drawings of women with thin bodies and large eyes filled with melancholy were known as Yumeji Bijin-ga.  During the height of his popularity he was called the "modern Utamaro" and the Japanese "Toulouse-Lautrec and Edvard Munch". His prints epitomized the relationship between popular art and the woodblock. Yumeji is the printmaker who best exemplifies the Taisho era.