Kazuyuki Ohtsu https://www.pomegranate.com/kazuyukiohtsu.

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KAZUYUKI OHTSU

Kazuyuki Ohtsu
ARTIST SPOTLIGHT

Born in a time of political and cultural turmoil for his homeland,

Kazuyuki Ohtsu (Japanese, b. 1935) spent his formative years under
the shadow of war. From this chaos and struggle, he took refuge in
reading, and so began his love of the printed word. This quiet,
introspective man would ultimately gain renown for printed images
that offer a visual escape and evoke a sense of peace. Author Bob
Hicks, in his monograph on the artist (Kazuyuki Ohtsu, Pomegranate
2016), remarked that despite Ohtsu’s real-world experiences and
the crush and thrum of life in modern-day Tokyo, the artist has
created “a dream Japan.”

[It’s] an idealization of rolling hills and distant mountains,

tucks of forest, spacious gardens, villages where life and
thought are serene. This Japan is soft and harmonious, a
place of nature tamed yet still unquestionably natural,
growing and thriving within the shapes and limits that Ohtsu
the artist has provided for it. Like Monet’s Giverny, Ohtsu’s
world is a place to escape to, an intellectual and emotional The artist in his home, July 2015
reserve, a haven of inspiration and replenishment.

A Large Cherry Tree in Spring, 2002

The thirteenth child in a family of silk weavers, Ohtsu broke with

tradition to study woodblock printmaking. At eighteen he left his
home in the Gunma Prefecture to travel some �fty miles to Tokyo,
where he began work at Isamu Umehara Print Workshop. Four years
later he was invited to become the assistant to Kiyoshi Saito, a
woodblock artist at the forefront of the sōsaku hanga movement. As
part of this “creative prints” movement, the artist handled every
step of the meticulous, time-consuming production of prints:
painting the original pictures, carving the woodblocks, and printing
the images.

Ohtsu and Saito worked together for nearly four decades and
became devoted collaborators, but their relationship began as
master and student, and the prints they produced bore Saito’s
name. Later in life Saito encouraged Ohtsu’s artistic independence
and paved the way for his solo career. Ohtsu’s own work gently
diverged from the style of Saito’s more modernist prints, which
Hicks describes as “evocations of reality, but also frankly arti�cial….
while Ohtsu’s can seem like windows on a transcendental world.” A
number of Ohtsu’s prints capture the beauty of cherry trees,
celebrated in Japanese literature, poetry, and art for hundreds of
years. The spring blossoms are rich in symbolism, with their brief

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Kazuyuki Ohtsu https://www.pomegranate.com/kazuyukiohtsu.html

lifespan and fragile beauty often serving as a metaphor for the

ephemeral nature of life.

Cat and Pansy Ohtsu’s artwork has been exhibited and collected worldwide.

Hana Mandara at Myogetsu-In, 2001

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