Kan Kawada
幹川田
Japanese, 1924–1999

Picture of a Street in Gion, Kyoto, 1976
color woodcut
Gift of Susan and James Carter
2013.1.3

In Kyoto’s Gion neighborhood, a famous geisha district, the traditions of late-Edo period nightlife live on. Kawada uses two-point perspective to accentuate the length of the Gion’s ancient winding streets lined with countless wooden merchant homes in the traditional machiya style. Kawada’s striking red sky and the shuttered storefronts portray a scene bathed in the first warm rays of dawn or the fading light of dusk. Kawada, who graduated from the prestigious Ochanomizu Bunka Gakuin Art Institute in Tokyo, is notable for using stencils. A master stencil, colored black, provides structure while additional stencils add colors (in this case, natural pigments). As in Kawada’s other works, a light “dusting” of ink adds texture to the road, and multiple shades of black ink create shadows on black architectural features. The prominent power lines compete with a Buddhist pagoda, spoiling the impression of a neighborhood completely untouched by the passage of time.
H.T.

Kan Kawada
幹川田
Japanese, 1924–1999

Interior, 1976
stencil on paper
Gift of Ted and Marcia Marks in memory of Emily Howe Marks
2011.30.6

Kawada studied with Serizawa Keisuke, one of the great masters of the katazome stencil dying process, which used paper stencils to create decorative fabrics with bold colors and complex patterns. The sharp lines of the tatami mats lining the floor and the treatment of the wooden grilles covering the windows in Kawada’s Interior are evocative of these paper cutouts. Kawada perfected pictorial perspective, achieving a high degree of accuracy. His representation of structural forms as large intersecting blocks of color emphasizes the strength of the thick cypress beam construction typical of Late-Edo period homes such as this Kusakabe House from the 1860’s. Once the home of a family of Edo-period Japanese merchants, this entry room is adorned with traditional accents. Archetypical antique features, such as a daidokoro sunken hearth and a small Shinto shrine, speak to the long cultural history of Japan still present during the rapid modernization of the 1970s.
H.T.