Hashiguchi Goyō (橋口 五葉 Hashiguchi Goyō, December
21, 1880 - February 24, 1921) created only 14 published prints during his
life-time — the first at age thirty-five and the last shortly before his death
at forty-one. These prints are among the finest and most expensive modern
Japanese prints a collector can buy and made Goyo immortal. If Hashiguchi had
not been of such frail health, he could have become the leading Japanese artist
of the twentieth century.
Hashiguchi was born as the son of a samurai in
Kagoshima as Hashiguchi Kiyoshi. He was taught in traditional Kano painting by
his father, an amateur painter, from the early age of ten. Later he went to
Tokyo, called himself Goyo and studied Western oil painting at the Tokyo School
of Fine Arts, from which he graduated in 1905 as the best student of his class.
His first commission was an illustration for a
book titled I am a Cat by Natsume Sōseki
in 1905. In 1907 Hashiguchi won the first prize in a contest for an ukiyo-e
poster. This brought him some public recognition and one would have expected
the artist to jump into creating more Hashiguchi prints but he was disappointed
by an unenthusiastic public in future shows. In 1911 he again won recognition
for an ukiyo-e poster designed for the Mitsukoshi department store. From that
point on he became a serious student of ukiyo-e and began to study ukiyo-e from
books, originals, and reproductions. He was especially interested in the great
classical ukiyo-e artists. He was especially interested in the great classical
ukiyo-e artists. From 1914, while frail and suffering from beriberi, he
contributed articles on various ukiyo-e studies to Art News (Bijutsu-shinpō)
and Ukiyo-e magazine, and wrote several articles about Utamaro,
Hiroshige and Harunobu on a scholar-like level.
In 1915, urged by the shin-hanga publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō, he designed a print for
artisans to produce under Watanabe’s direction. Goyō designed
"Bathing" (Yuami), Watanabe wanted to continue the collaboration but
Goyō had other plans. Instead, he worked in 1916-1917 as supervisor of
reproductions for 12 volumes called "Japanese Color Prints" (Yamato
nishiki-e) and in the process became thoroughly familiar with the functions of
artisan carvers and printers. At the same time he was drawing from live models.
From 1918 until his death he produced thirteen more prints - four landscapes,
one nature print depicting ducks and eight prints of women. His total
production, including "Bathing," numbers fourteen prints. (After his
death a few more of his designs were developed into prints by his heirs.)
The first Goyo Hashiguchi print titled Woman in bath
or Yuami was a terrific masterwork. Watanabe was enthusiastic and wanted to
continue the cooperation with Hashiguchi. But the artist had other plans.
Probably he was feeling too much restricted in his artistic freedom by the
successful but rigid and business-like Watanabe.
In late 1920, Hashiguchi's latent health problems
escalated into meningitis. He supervised his last print Hot Spring Hotel from
his death bed in hospital, but could not finish it personally. He died in
February 1921.
Goyo had left several sketches from which his
heirs — his elder brother and his nephew — had later produced seven more
prints. The carving and printing had been commissioned to Maeda Kentaro and
Hirai Koichi.
Goyo Hashiguchi prints are of extremely high
quality standards. They were sold at very high prices at the time of their
first publication and sold well nevertheless. The tragedy of Hashiguchi was the
short time span of only two years to produce these superb masterworks - apart
from his first print published with Watanabe.
