HASHIMOTO Okiie (1899-1993)
Medium: color woodblock

Hashimoto graduated from Tottori Prefectural Normal School in 1920 and briefly worked as a primary school teacher.  He then took a three-year teacher’s training course at the Tokyo University of Fine Art, graduating in 1924. While there he also studied painting, sculpture, etching and lithography. After graduation, he was an art teacher at the university and at the first girls’ school in Tokyo until 1955. After retiring he began to pursue art full-time.

Hashimoto attended a workshop by prominent sōsaku-hanga artist Un’ichi Hiratsuka and began creating woodblock prints in his spare time in 1936. He and Hiratsuka remained close friends.

“Printmaking suits me. I’ve worked in both oil and Japanese watercolor and I keep them up, watercolors for relaxation and oils to stay in practice […] But as a medium I much prefer prints. I feel I can get more expression from the carving tool than I ever can from the brush. The brush goes along too easily. I like the resistance that the block gives me. And don’t be misled, the whole process of making a print is hard work—it’s hard but satisfying.”

Hashimoto became a member of the newly formed First Thursday Society in 1939, dedicated to the postwar revival of sōsaku-hanga. He first exhibited with the Japan Print Association in 1937 and continued to practice and exhibit at a number of national and international exhibitions throughout the remainder of his life, becoming president of the Japan Print Association in 1974.

Hashimoto cited Hiratsuka, Henri Matisse, André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck, Kanji Maeda, and Masao Maeda among his stylistic influences. Known for its simplified and decorative style and use of a restrained color palette, Hashimoto’s oeuvre spanned a variety of subjects throughout his career, though his preferred subjects were traditional Japanese architecture, gardens, and, in later years, floral and figural imagery.  He is also known for his prints of famous castles around Japan.

His work can be found in museums and galleries around the world, including the British Museum, the Nihon no Hanga Museum in Amsterdam, the Suzaka Hanga Museum in Nagano, the Ehime Museum of Art, and the Tottori Prefectural Museum.