Artist: Ikeda Shozu (1922-2004)
Title: Fallen Leaves
Date: 1968
Edition: 1st Ed. likely, 40/100
Sig./Seal: 'Shu.' Ikeda Sig. in Block, Self-published
Condition: Excellent with ever so slight toning
Size: 18.25 x 12.5                   $595
 
Ikeda Shozu (1922-2004)
Shuzo Ikeda was born in 1922 in Kisakata-machi, Akita Prefecture, Japan. He graduated from Tokyo Higher Normal School in 1945, and began to teach from 1946 to 1955. After teaching, Ikeda worked in Tokyo as a full-time moku hanga woodcut artist, becoming a member of the Nihon Hanga Kyokai artist association. He was especially known for his integration of the woodblock grain in his images.
Dieter Wanczura on the Japanese print website Artelino.com, notes that Shuzo specialized in wide-eyed children with flowers, birds, insects, sacred stone images, and native dolls, typical of the post-war economic booming years of circa 1960 through 1985. It was the period of a prosperity and of great cultural changes in Japan in the way of life, music and fashion.