Chosei Kawakami

Japanese artist Chosei Kawakami was an English teacher and a self-taught Sosaku Hanga artist in the area of woodcarving. Born in Yokohama, an enclave of foreigners, he got in touch with Western influences in art leading to a new type of woodcuts. Thus, he also became one of the few Japanese artists to experiment in the Western Style. During his youth, he met the painter and woodcutter Goda Kiyoshi, who was familiar with traditional Japanese as well as with Western style graphical art. In 1917 he traveled for two years to Canada and the United States to learn the local techniques.

On his return, Kawakami became an English teacher in a public school in Tochigi Prefecture and started his own graphical activities, producing single sheets as well as self-printed books in limited numbers. Kawakami’s style was sometimes ironical and humorous, with many of his print subjects dealing with the impact of foreigners on the Japanese culture. During the last years of World War II, he and his family were evacuated to the northern island of Hokkaido, where they stayed until 1949. Kawakami achieved widespread recognition in the 1960s. The Kawakami Sumio Graphic Art Museum in Kanuma, Tochigi prefecture is entirely devoted to his work.

Kawakami did not receive considerable recognition until the 1960s. His Picture of a Baseball Game could be identical to a woodblock print (sheet 30 x 36 cm, print 22 x 28.5 cm), which was created in 1932 and published in the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. The second woodcut, Baseball Game of the Village Boys from 1936, in Japanese titled Drawing of Village Baseball Game, has the format 31 x 40.5 cm.