Kasamatsu Shirō (Japanese, 1898–1991)

“Night Rain at Shinobazu Pond”, 1938, Woodblock Print

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‘rain is grace; rain is the sky descending to the earth without rain, there would be no life.’

-john updike

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Shiro Kasamatsu (笠松 紫浪, Kasamatsu Shirō; was a Japanese engraver and print maker trained in the Shin-Janga and Sosaku-Hanga styles of woodblock printing.

Kasamatsu was born in Tokyo in 1898 and apprenticed at the age of 13 to Kaburagi Kivokata , a traditional master of Bijin-ga, pictures of beautiful women. Kasamatsu however took an interest in landscape and was given the pseudonym Shiro by his teacher, which he used as a signature mark in his prints. Kasamatsu exhibited his paintings in government sponsored juried exhibitions. He completed his first woodblock prints in 1919 for Shozaburo Watanabe after the publisher saw his paintings on exhibit. Almost all the woodblocks were destroyed in a fire in Watanabe’s print shop following the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. Around 50 prints were published by Watanabe by the late 1940s. Kasamatsu began to partner with Unsodo in Kyoto in the 1950s and produced over 100 prints by 1960. He also began to print and publish on his own Sosaku-Hanga style and produced nearly 80 prints between 1955 and 1965.