Tōshi Yoshida (Japan, 1911-1995) is known for rendering realistic landscapes, imaginative abstract designs, and detailed portraits of animals in their environments. His style can not be easily summarized because he was constantly innovating and pushing the boundaries of the woodblock medium. However, Yoshida’s prints consistently display distinct and daring compositions and color schemes.

Works by Toshi Yoshida

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Ishiyama Temple Ishiyamadera by Toshi Yoshida

Ishiyama Temple (Ishiyamadera) by Toshi Yoshida (Japan, 1911-1995). A beautiful Japanes Shin Hanga print depicting the historic Ishiyamadera Temple. Published in 1946.

The Ishiyamadera Temple was founded in 749 and is headquarters of one of the Shingon Buddhist sects. The temple is mentioned in the Ukifune chapter of The Tale of Genji and is the 13th temple of the Saigoku Kannon pilgrimage. Murasaki is said to have begun writing The Tale of Genji at Ishiyamadera Temple on the night of the full moon, August 1004.

Pencil signed by the artist.

Size: 10 3/8” w x 15 7/8” h

Condition: Good impression. Some slight toning and color fading. Tape line across top edge on back from previous framing. Overall good condition.

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Untitled Abstract by Toshi Yoshida

Untitled Abstract by Toshi Yoshida (Japan, 1911-1995). An intricate and compelling mixed media work by Toshi Yoshida composed in 1951, shortly after his father Hiroshi Yoshida's death. Prior to his father's passing, Toshi's primary body of work was in parallel to his father, composed of realistic and beautifully executed landscapes. In the early 1950s Toshi began to deviate from these types of works and produced a wide series of abstract prints which were more contemplative in nature. This abstract period carried well into his later years. This works is one of the earliest abstracts I'm aware of dated 1951. Signed by the artist in pencil. Originally acquired from the Yoshida Family Collection.

Size: 7 1/2" h x 5 1/4 w
Condition: Excellent.

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Autumn in Hakone Museum by Toshi Yoshida

Autumn in Hakone Museum by Toshi Yoshida (Japan, 1911-1995). A fantastic Shin Hanga print depicting the gardens at Hakone Museum during autumn. The design captures the beauty in the change of seasons with the warm color tones of the fall leaves. Dated 1954 and pencil signed by the artist. Printed by the Yoshida Family.

Size: 16" w x 21 1/2 h (framed)
Condition: Excellent color and impression. 3 small brown spots on the upper right hand corner of the impression (very minimal). Framed.

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A Japanese Legacy Four Generations Of Yoshida Family Artists

A Japanese Legacy Four Generations Of Yoshida Family Artists. Soft Cover. Illustrated.  223 numbered pages. Copyright 2002.  ISBN: 0-912964-87-1.  LCCN: 2001135456.  Published by The Minneapolis Institute Of Arts.

This major exhibition presents over 160 oil paintings, watercolors and woodblock prints by eight artists from a single family spanning four generations and over 100 years. Featured artists include Kasaburo Yoshida, Hiroshi Yoshida, Toshi Yoshida, Hodaka Yoshida, and the Yoshida women: Fujio, Chizuko, Kiso, and Ayomi, with approximately 20 oil paintings, 15 watercolors, and 100 woodblock prints, several sketchbooks, and other supporting photographs. These fine works are drawn from both public and private collections, most notably The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Toledo Museum of Art, Margaret and Eugene Skibbe (Minneapolis), the Tokyo National Museum, The Fukuoka Art Museum, and the Yoshida family.The catalogue features essays by Koichi Yasunaga, chief curator at the Fukuoka Art Museum, Kendall Brown, professor at California State, Long Beach, Laura W. Allen of San Francisco, Eugene M. Skibbe of Minneapolis and Matthew Welch, curator of Japanese art at The Minneapolis Institute of Arts. They provide new insights into each artist as well as a broad view of major issues confronting Japanese art in the late 19th and 20th century. The unique perspective of a single family also offers a rare opportunity to examine how family ties impact artistic creation.

Size: 9" w x 11 1/2" h
Condition: Good. Covers with some slight occasional edge scuff.  Book has a very slight wave to it as though it may have been "rolled."  Right side exterior page edges at the upper portion with some small pot staining.

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No 3 by Toshi Yoshida work no longer available

No. 3 by Toshi Yoshida (Japan, 1911-1995). A dynamic dark abstract print with splashes of bright neon blue / green colors. At first glance, to me, it feels like what you may encounter at the very depths of the ocean. Although most likely the print is purely intended to be abstract. Dated 1952 and pencil signed by the artist. One of the first abstract Sosaku Hanga works issued by Toshi Yoshida.

Size: 14 5/8" h x 9 3/4" w (image); 21 1/2" h x 16 3/4" w (framed)
Condition: Very good color and impression. Framed.

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No. 5 by Toshi Yoshida work no longer available

No. 5 by Toshi Yoshida (Japan, 1911-1995). Japanese woodblock print. Pencil signed, titled and dated by the artist. Dated 1952.

After his father (Hiroshi's) death, Toshi began to move more towards abstract works and affiliating himself with the Sosaku Hanga creative print movement. The series of abstract works of women are one of his earliest ventures into abstract printmaking.

Size: 10 1/2" w x 15 1/2" h
Condition: Good condition. Excellent impression and color. Rubbing and fading to title of print which is in pencil. Slight loss to bottom left edge of margin not affecting image. Tape remnants top left and right in the margin not affecting image.

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Spanish Girl by Toshi Yoshida work no longer available

Spanish Girl by Toshi Yoshida (Japan, 1911-1995). Japanese woodblock print. Pencil signed, titled and dated by the artist. Dated 1954.

After his father (Hiroshi's) death, Toshi began to move more towards abstract works and affiliating himself with the Sosaku Hanga creative print movement. The series of abstract works of women are one of his earliest ventures into abstract printmaking including a series where he depicted various women from around the world. This work is from this series.

Size: 11" w x 16" h
Condition: Excellent condition. The paper has two small pinholes on its left side.

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No. 4 by Toshi Yoshida work no longer available

No. 4 by Toshi Yoshida (Japan, 1911-1995). Japanese woodblock print. Pencil signed, titled and dated by the artist. Dated 1952.

After his father (Hiroshi's) death, Toshi began to move more towards abstract works and affiliating himself with the Sosaku Hanga creative print movement. The series of abstract works of women are one of his earliest ventures into abstract printmaking.

Size: 10 1/2" w x 15 1/2" h
Condition: Excellent condition.

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Nude by Toshi Yoshida work no longer available

Nude by Toshi Yoshida (Japanese, 1911-1995). Original Japanese woodblock print depicting an abstract image of a nude woman. Pencil signed by the artist. Dated 1954. Titled "Nude" in pencil.

Size: 23" h x 17" w (framed)
Condition: Very good.

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Varieties of The Japanese Print, Volume 1 by Toshi Yoshida work no longer available

Varieties of The Japanese Print, Volume 1 by Toshi Yoshida. Signed by Toshi Yoshida. Decorated paper covered boards with cloth label, purple silk cord tie. In slipcase. 20 hand-printed woodblocks, each design is unique and they are printed on 12 different types of paper. Only volume one was printed. Toshi Yoshida (1911-1995), was a Japanese printmaking artist associated with the sosaku-hanga movement, and son of shin-hanga artist Hiroshi Yoshida.

Condition: Very good for age. Impression and pages are in excellent condition. Slip case has some staining, but there is no staining to the book itself.
Size: 8" w x 9" h

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Gagaku by Toshi Yoshida work no longer available

Gagaku by Toshi Yoshida (Japan, 1911-1995). Signed and titled in pencil by the artist. Dated 1968. Limited edition numbered 27 of 120. Toshi trained under his father, Hiroshi Yoshida, mostly focusing on the shin-hanga approach to his prints. After his father died, Toshi began exploring more abstract designs, as well as self-publishing using the sosaku-hanga approach.

This print came from a large collection of 160 pieces initially purchased from the Associated American Artist in Houston, TX by the original owner of the print.

Size: 16 1/8" w x 21 3/8" h
Condition: Excellent

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Meditation by Toshi Yoshida work no longer available

Meditation by Toshi Yoshida (Japan, 1911-1995). Signed and titled in pencil by the artist. Dated 1966. Limited edition numbered 10 of 100. Toshi trained under his father, Hiroshi Yoshida, mostly focusing on the shin-hanga approach to his prints. After his father died, Toshi began exploring more abstract designs, as well as self-publishing using the sosaku-hanga approach.

This print came from a large collection of 160 pieces initially purchased from the Associated American Artist in Houston, TX by the original owner of the print.

Size: 21 1/2" h x 15 7/8" w
Condition: Excellent color and impression. Tape remnants.

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Transcendence by Toshi Yoshida work no longer available

Transcendence by Toshi Yoshida (Japan, 1911-1995). Signed and titled in pencil by the artist. Dated 1968. Limited edition numbered 5 of 120. Toshi trained under his father, Hiroshi Yoshida, mostly focusing on the shin-hanga approach to his prints. After his father died, Toshi began exploring more abstract designs, as well as self-publishing using the sosaku-hanga approach. This is an example of one of his Sosaku Hanga designs where he is interpreting the metaphysical.

This print came from a large collection of 160 pieces initially purchased from the Associated American Artist in Houston, TX by the original owner of the print.

Size: 16 1/8" w x 21 1/4" h
Condition: Excellent.

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Groups of People by Toshi Yoshida work no longer available

Groups of People by Toshi Yoshida. An unusual elongated woodblock print in four sections by Toshi Yoshida (1911 - 1995). A series of four panels depicting people going about their daily lives.  Signed in pencil by the artist in the lower right, Japanese title in pencil in lower left.

Size: 20” w x 3” h
Condition: Has a 1 inch semicircular tear center left of the left most panel.  Hard to see when pressed flat.  Can see the tear best from the rear. Small crease in upper left corner. Image and impression is strong.

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Village of Plums by Toshi Yoshida work no longer available

Village of Plums by Toshi Yoshida (Japan, 1911-1995). This beautiful print features a view of the rooftops and gardens of a Japanese village with mountains in the background in muted reds, greens, blues, and yellows. A classic Yoshida landscape print. It is titled in the plate to the lower left, signed by the artist in pencil to the lower right. With red artist's seal within the image (with chop). Dates to 1951.

Size: 10" h x 15" w
Condition: Good.

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Hie-Jinja by Toshi Yoshida work no longer available

A vintage 1940 original Japanese woodblock print titled Hie-Jinga by Toshi Yoshida (1911-1995). The print depicts figures feeding birds in front of a large red building with a large beautifully pink tree. The title is stamped with raised embossment to the lower left and signed in pencil to the lower right with printer’s marks along.

Size: 9 1/4" x 6 5/8"
Condition: Good

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Pine Tree of the Friendly Garden by Toshi Yoshida work no longer available

Pine Tree of the Friendly Garden by Toshi Yoshida. This print is the left-hand woodblock print from the triptych, The Friendly Garden by Toshi Yoshida, which was the only triptych produced by Toshi Yoshida. The woodblock prints showed the Yoshida family garden.

The triptych was produced by Toshi Yoshida in the Yoshida studio and distributed by the Franklin Mint Gallery ca 1980. The prints distributed by the Franklin Mint in 1980 are pencil signed in Japanese.

Condition: Excellent
Size: 31" x 15 1/2"

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Sangetsu-an Hakone Muesum by Toshi Yoshida work no longer available

Sangetsu-an Hakone Muesum by Toshi Yoshida. A wonderful Japanese woodblock print by the famed Toshi Yoshida. Yoshida, b. 1911,  is in permanent museum collections throughout the world and has exhibited extensively. Classic autumn view showcasing the beautiful color season in Japan. The bright maple leaves stand out against the white birches, traditional stone lantern and wooden entrance gate. Stamp signed lower right.

Condition: Excellent. Unframed and unmatted. Very good with no tears or creases.
Size: 14" x 10.5"

Biography

print biography

Tōshi Yoshida (吉田 遠志, 1911-1995) is known for rendering realistic landscapes, imaginative abstract designs, and detailed portraits of animals in their environments. His style can not be easily summarized because he was constantly innovating and pushing the boundaries of the woodblock medium. However, Yoshida’s prints consistently display distinct and daring compositions and color schemes. 
 
Tōshi Yoshida was born on July 25, 1911, in Tokyo, Japan. Tōshi was the eldest son of Shin Hanga (New Movement) artist Hiroshi Yoshida (1876-1950) and Fujio Yoshida (1887-1987), and older brother of Hodaka Yoshida (1926-1995). Tōshi was unable to attend school after he contracted polio at a young age. As a result, he was homeschooled and spent time sketching animals at his father’s print workshop. By 1926, at age 15, Tōshi chose animals as his primary subject matter. However, by age 19, Tōshi delved into landscape painting and printmaking like his father. The father and son team traveled for one-year from 1930 to 1931, visiting India, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Malaysia, Singapore, Calcutta, and Burma. Later in his early adulthood, Tōshi attended the Taiheiyo-Gakai (Pacific Painting Association) from 1932 to 1935, which had been co-founded by his father.
 
In 1936, Japan fell under a military dictatorship. During this time, Tōshi lived in China and Korea and eventually moved back. In 1940, he married Kiso Yoshida with whom he shared five sons. In 1943, Tōshi produced oil paintings that depicted factory workers and civilians engaging in war production. After the war, because of economic hardship, Tōshi published seventeen landscape works in 1951 for American personnel and their wives. After the Second World War, Tōshi embarked on his biggest trip, setting his sights on every continent – he even did not leave out Antarctica. Tōshi produced detailed sketches of what he saw and returned home to recreate these images into prints and paintings. During his travels, he also showed in many exhibitions and lectured at various stops in Europe and America. Tōshi made presentations in thirty museums and galleries in eighteen states.
 
The death of Tōshi’s father in 1950 marked the artist's total break from his past and from naturalism. His early works, such as Tokyo at Night - Supper Wagon (1938) are close to his father's style and continued his father's naturalistic depictions up to the 1950s. In 1952, Tōshi began to make larger abstract prints in the sosaku hanga manner without the help of his workshop. In 1952, Tōshi began a series of abstract woodcuts influenced by his brother Hodaka Yoshida. From 1954 to 1973, Tōshi made three hundred nonobjective prints. In 1971, Tōshi returned to his innate affinity for animals and focused on birds and animals again. His Humming Bird and Fuchsia series in 1971 was a prelude to the African works that he began the following year.
 
In 1980, Tōshi opened a printmaking school in Nagano Prefecture and taught students like Karyn Young, Carol Jessen, Sarah Brayer, and Micah Schwaberow, all who later became internationally known artists and printmakers. Tōshi also taught his sons Takashi, Hitoshi, Kobun, and Akihiro his craft in order to pass on the Yoshida family legacy. From 1971 to 1994, Tōshi worked almost exclusively on animal prints and integrated his illustrations into a children's book. He wrote his own short stories and made illustrations in the Dobutsu Ehon Shirizu (Animal Picture Book) series. Towards the end of his life, Tōshi became too weak to sign his prints, but was still active in the printing studio and supervised the printing process. Prints during this late phase of his life were marked with a stamped signature plus an embossed seal. In 1995, Tōshi Yoshida died in 1995 at age 93 from cancer in Tokyo, Japan.
 
In 2015, Mount Holyoke College Art Museum in Massachusetts recently featured an exhibition titled The Yoshida Family: An Artistic Legacy in Prints. In 2002, the Minneapolis Institute of Art also published Japanese Legacy: Four Generations of Yoshida Family Artists. Additionally, in 2013, the Art Institute of Chicago produced The Yoshida Family: Three Generations of Japanese Artists. These major exhibitions featured the expansive work of the generational Yoshida family. Tōshi Yoshida’s work can be found in numerous international collections and major museums including the National Museum of Australia, Museum of Modern Art in New York, Cincinnati Art Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, Paris National Library, National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, British Museum, and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, among others.

Insights

Themes: The Moon Through the Eras

by: Chris Koller

The moon has been a significant character throughout Japanese history dating back to as early as the Asuka period when Buddhist inspired art began to feature the sun and moon together as a popular theme. The moon not only represented a strong harvest, but also provided a form of personal enlightenment, solitude and appreciation of beauty. As the popularity of ukiyo-e grew during the Edo period, the artistic interpretation of the moon became easily accessible to regular citizens as this artwork was mass produced, and even extended it's influence into Western artists including Van Gogh and Monet. In this post, I have included selections of Japanese art featuring the moon from the Ukiyo-e, Shin Hanga and Sosaku Hanga movements.

Themes: Stone Gardens in Japanese Art

by: Chris Koller

The sight of a stone garden automatically brings to mind memories of my time in Japan. These stone gardens are beautiful temples to simplicity, peace, balance and meditation. A central part to the Japanese meditative experience, you will find stone gardens as a theme in Japanese art work of all eras, but particularly among those artists who participated in the Sosaku Hanga movement. In this post I explore some of my favorite works around this theme and highlight the artists who created them.

The Yoshida Family Exhibition - Mount Holyoke College Art Museum

This online guide provides digital access to the original prints, contextual photographs, and informative texts that were mounted as part of the special exhibition, The Yoshida Family: An Artistic Legacy in Prints. Click on the thumbnail images below to learn more about the individual works of art and archival documents included in the installation.

Toshi Yoshida Collection - Art Institute Chicago

Collection of Toshi Yoshida prints in the Art Institute Chicago collection.