Okiie Hashimoto information

Okiie Hashimoto (橋本興家, Hashimoto Okiie, IPA: [o.ki:.e], 1899–1993) was a Japanese artist and educator. Best known as part of the postwar revival of the sōsaku-hanga (Creative Prints) movement, he began his career as a school art teacher. In 1936, he began creating woodblock prints after he attended a workshop organized by prominent sōsaku-hanga artist Un’ichi Hiratsuka and began creating woodblock prints, which he successfully entered at major salon-style exhibitions in 1937. In 1939, he joined the newly formed First Thursday Society (Ishimoku-kai, 一木会), which gathered around Kōshirō Onchi, who would become a leading figure in the postwar Creative Prints movement.

In his prolific career in printmaking, he was known for an innovative use of simplified and decorative forms that exude a modern feel. He was interested in expressing the effects of light as much as carefully controlled geometry in composition and forms. Although Hashimoto portrayed diverse subjects, including flowers and figures in his late years, he preferred to work on Japanese architectures and gardens, partly in order to memorialize rapidly disappearing castles.

In his lifetime, his achievements were rewarded with his appointment to the president of the Japan Print Association (1974–79) and his invitations to the prestigious international prints biennales in Tokyo (1957, 1970, 1972) and Lugano (1972).