Japanese (1814 -1988)

Junichiro Sekino, a painter, graphic designer, and woodblock printmaker, was one of the noted artists of the Sosaku Hanga movement, an essential current of Japanese art.

Sekino was stylistically and technically diverse: he quickly switched from figurative to abstract art, from black and white compositions to colourful expressions. He was also flexible with subjects.  Sekino sometimes resorted to mixing Western and Japanese techniques in his works.

He grew up in Aomori City alongside Shiko Munakata, the future 'Japanese Picasso,' studying printmaking and oil painting. 1936 brought him a Bunten award for his etching, awarded by the government. In 1939, he moved to the capital, where he came across the Sosaku Hanga movement and studied under one of its fathers, Koshiro Onchi. He maintained a dual direction in his studies: traditional Japanese woodblock printing techniques and Western ones, modeling himself on the great artists of Japan and the West.

During the war, Sekino worked in a factory producing ammunition, and artistic life in Japan reached a standstill in those harsh years. After the war, Sekino struggled to survive producing book illustrations. The 1950s were a better time for Sekino, and he launched his first show in Tokyo in 1953.

His works were also exhibited outside Japan and bought internationally by such European and American entities as the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) in New York and The Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

In 1958, he received an invitation from the Rockefeller Foundation and the American Japan Society. From then on, Sekino traveled and taught around the world. From 1965, he held a position at Kobe University."   Source: Askart