Edutainment > Okuyama Gihachiro - 1907-1981

Snow at Godai-do on Matsu-shima Island
by Gihachiro Okuyama, 1949

Okuyama Gihachiro had one thing in common with American pop art artists Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. He worked in commercial arts and in the so-called fine arts at the same time.

The fundamental concept of pop art is not new. The traditional art of Japanese woodblock printing never knew the distinction between the fine arts and commercial arts and between artists and artisans.

Okuyama Gihachiro

Okuyama Gihachiro had studied art under Kosaka Gajin. In the 1920s he made commercial designs for different companies - posters and advertising labels. In 1931 he established his own advertising company.

Parallel to these commercial activities, Okuyama Gihachiro was active in the sosaku hanga and shin hanga movement and worked and exhibited with other artists in different and changing associations.

1930-1945: Difficult Times for Artists in Japan

The sunset in the town of Fuji-mach
by Gihachiro Okuyama, 1949

In the 1930s and the 1940s the situation for Japanese artists and Western artists working in Japanese style like Elizabeth Keith or Paul Jacoulet became pretty difficult. The United States of America were an important market. With the beginning of the great depression after the crash of the stock markets in 1929, the demands for Japanese prints from overseas dwindled. And when the economic recovery set in, the rising tensions between Japan and the US had completely eroded the North American market for Japanese goods. Western ukiyo-e artists like Elizabeth Keith left Japan.

The second world war made things even worse. Materials necessary to work got scarce. During the wartime, the sosaku hanga and shin hanga artists organized in Nihon Hanga Hokokai, a wartime organization. The French-Japanese artist Paul Jacoulet, who had remained in Japan, moved to the countryside and survived by cultivating vegetables and raising poultry which he sold on the black market.

Postwar Activities

After the end of World War II the situation normalized rapidly for artists in Japan. The economy recovered and many American soldiers stationed in Japan discovered the charm of Japanese prints or bought them as souvenirs or gifts for their loved ones at home. Paul Jacoulet, instead of selling poultry on the black market, now sold his prints to General Douglas MacArthur, commander of the US Pacific Forces and an avid collector of Japanese art.

Also Okuyama Gihachiro had survived the war. And in 1946 he established a publishing company, Nihon Hanga Kenkyusho - the Japan Print Institute. Gihachiro continued to be involved in the commercial sector and at the same time in creating artistic prints. After the war, he designed mainly landscape prints. At the end of his life he had created more than 1,000 prints - in sosaku hanga and shin hanga style. After the death of Okuyama Gihachiro, his son Gijin continued the work of his father.

Literature sources for this Okuyama Gihachiro biography

• Helen Merritt and Nanako Yamada, "Guide to Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints: 1900-1975", published by University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, ISBN 0-8248-1732-X

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