Shin Hanga. Japanese Prints of the 20th Century.

The great masters of ukiyo-e printmaking were no longer with us when their works achieved phenomenal success in the West at the end of the 19th century. At the beginning of the following century, the last print painters, faced with competition from photography and lithography, gradually turned to painting and illustration.
Fortunately, the publisher Watanabe Shôzaburô, who appreciated prints more than anything, decided to give them a second life. He had the idea of creating a new style of woodblock prints with the help of young painters. This movement was henceforth called Shin hanga (new prints). Other publishers participated and competed in technical prowess, to create artistic creations of great originality.
This book takes us back in time to the creation of these new prints in the 1910s and to the end of the movement in the 1950s. Many artists participated in it. The main masters are represented here through their works, but also through the writings they left behind.