Kiyoshi Saito Woodblock Print Collection: Winter in Aizu

Name: Kiyoshi Saito Woodblock Print Collection: Winter in Aizu
Brand: さいとうきよし｜斎藤清 / SAITO Kiyoshi
Price: 14000 JPY
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Kiyoshi Saito's "Winter in Aizu" is a collection of woodblock prints featuring a series of works produced intermittently between 1938 and 1996, centered on the snowy landscapes of his hometown, Aizu, and is regarded as one of the artist's representative series.

In this series, motifs such as thatched-roof houses, bare trees, and silent villages are repeated, and the 화면 is structured by the strong contrast between white snow and black buildings. The snow is not depicted but treated as negative space, allowing its mass and stillness to emerge, and combined with simplified forms, the landscape takes on an abstract quality detached from realism. The titles also vary, such as "Winter in Aizu," "WINTER IN AIZU," or untitled, and it is characterized by the repetition and variation of compositions and viewpoints within the same subject.

For Saito, the winter of Aizu was not merely an object of nostalgia but a visual structure reconfigured by form and negative space. This work is an attempt to reduce landscapes to universal images by stripping them down, and it is an important series that represents the pinnacle of modernism in Japanese woodblock prints.

[Title] Kiyoshi Saito Woodblock Print Collection: Winter in Aizu
[Publisher] Kodansha
[Publication Date] November 20, 1982
[Page Count] 169 pages
[Size] Approximately 370*276mm
[Format] Hardcover
[Language] Japanese
[Title Reading] SAITO KIYOSHI HANGA SHU AIZU NO FUYU
[Author/Editor] Kiyoshi Saito / Author, Daiichi Publishing Center / Editor
[Printing] Toppan Printing / Printing, Wada Seihon Kogyo / Binding
[ISBN]
[Condition] Used [4] Fair to Below Average (Box slightly scratched, some foxing on endpapers and a few pages, sunned and slightly stained edges)
[Accessories] Box (shipping box missing)
[Featured in] -
[Related Exhibitions] -

Kiyoshi Saito (1907–1997)

Born in Aizubange-machi, Fukushima Prefecture in 1907. Printmaker.
After self-studying painting, he transitioned to woodblock printing in the mid-1930s, and his production became more serious as he was selected for the Japan Print Association Exhibition and the Kokuga-kai Exhibition. In 1940, he began creating "Winter in Aizu," which became his representative work and a theme he repeatedly tackled throughout his life.

After the war, he was active as a member of the Kokuga-kai and established his international reputation with awards at the Salon de Printemps Exhibition in 1948 and the São Paulo Biennial in 1951. Thereafter, he held exhibitions and conducted workshops in various parts of the United States and Europe, gaining widespread recognition overseas. He established a unique woodblock print expression that reinterprets Japanese motifs in a modern way through simplified forms, strong composition, and effective use of negative space.

In his later years, he was designated a Person of Cultural Merit (1995) and received the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Fourth Class, in 1981.
He passed away in 1997, the same year a museum dedicated to him opened in Yanaizu-machi, Fukushima Prefecture.
He is considered one of Japan's most representative modern print artists.