Tomio Kinoshita (1923 – 2014)
Big Boys, 1960
Woodblock print
Image size: 32.75 high by 22 inches wide (83 by 56 cm)
Paper size: 35.5 high by 23.75 inches wide (90 by 60.3 cm)
Signed: in pencil lower right, Tomio Kinoshita
Titled: in pencil at lower left
Edition: 30/50
Condition: Very good
The woodblock for this large print was carved in 1958, just three years after Kinoshita’s began creating woodblocks. This print was signed and dated in 1960, but not numbered; prints were also pulled from this block in the 1970s, so it must have been one of more popular images.
One of his students has written, “As time progressed further, the postwar era saw improvements in nutrition, and children became taller and heavier than in the past, but their lack of physical exercise and severely inferior physical abilities became a social problem; this is ironically depicted in Big Boys.” In 1963, Kinoshita told him that he had just finished pulling a print of this image in response to a request from Unichi Hiratsuka, one of the leaders of the sosaku hanga movement, who was living in the U.S. at the time.
The Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art has a print of this image dated 1976, edition 25/50.
A copy of the 1995 Mie Prefectural Art Museum exhibition catalog, Tomio Kinoshita, will be included with purchase.
$5000
