Background

Koshiro Onchi was born on July 2, 1891 in Tokyo, Japan. Onchi came from an aristocratic family that had close connections with the imperial family.

Education

As a child, he received the same kind of education that a prince received. Onchi was trained in both traditional calligraphy and modern western art.

Onchi entered Tokyo School of Fine Arts in 1910, studying first oil painting and then sculpture. In 1911 he withdrew from the school and obtained a job as a book designer. In 1912 he was readmitted to Tokyo School of Fine Arts.

Career

In 1912, he founded the print and poetry magazine called "Tsukubae".

Onchi contributed cover designs, poems, and moku-hanga, in 1917 Onchi published his first collection of prints, Happiness (Kofuku). In 1919 he participated in the first Nihon Sosaku-Hanga Kyokai exhibition and in 1921 began publication of the general art magazine Naizai with Otsuki Kenji and Fujimori Shizuo.

Over the years Onchi was also active in producing and promoting other poetry and print magazines to which he contributed poems, prints, graphic design, and articles promoting the idea that printmaking is a legitimate expressive and creative medium, not merely a means of reproduction.

By 1927 Onchi had established a reputation as a book designer. In 1928, in the wake of Lindbergh’s trans-atlantic flight, was engaged by a newspaper company to go up in a plane and record his impressions of flight. The resulting book: Sensations of Flight (Hiko kanno).

He personally designed over 1,000 books for publishers creating suitable letters for the cover of each one and published several books of his own poems or prose with illustrations.

From around 1932, Onchi worked on the design of a number of books about photography published by Genkōsha (玄光社) and Ars. He also became interested in photography. Through the 1930s and 1940s, Onchi worked in the spirit of shinkō shashin. He worked on plants, animals and objets, and also created photograms.

Onchi was sent to China in 1939 and later the same year returned to Tokyo and had an exhibition of his Chinese works.

Onchi exhibited his photograms in 1951 but otherwise dropped out of photography. He died in Tokyo on 3 June 1955.

Achievements

• Koshiro was a major force in the Sosaku-Hanga movement and the leading abstract print artist of his time in Japan.
  
  In 1949 he received the first prize offered in Japan for book design. In the midst of his busy professional career in 1938 he contributed to One Hundred Views of New Japan (Shin Nihon hyakkei).
  
  

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Hyacinth

  • Portrait of Sakutarō Hagiwara

  • Mirror

  • The Sea

  • After the Bath (Tokyo)

  • Light Time

  • Bathroom in the Morning - Hanga Vol. 13

  • Allegory: Columbus's Egg

  • Bathers

  • Narcissus

  • Kitsutsuki Vol.1 - Blue Sky and the Trees

  • Poem No. 6: Image de la Mer

  • Fiction no. 1

  • Composition No. 3 Mannequin

  • Poème

  • Allegorie No. 1: Family (b)

  • Washing her Hair

  • Caricature No.1 (Bread and Match)

  • Impression of a Violinist (Portrait Of Suwa Nejiko)

  • Fairy Tale of the Sea

  • Past

  • Leaf and Cloud (Poem No. 22)

  • Morning Glory

  • Lyric no. 9: Distant Hope

  • Poem No. 23: Fish

  • Ueno Zoo (Ueno Dobutsuen) from the series Scenes of Last Tokyo

  • Things Suspended in the Sky

  • Form No.3: Uprise of Blue

  • Cherry blossom time

  • Nijubashi (Bridge to the Imperial Palace) from the series Scenes of Last Tokyo

  • Family of the Mountain

  • Poème No. 7: Landscape of May

  • Allegory: Ruins (Haikyo)

  • Yearning Afterward

  • Bath Room (Yokushitsu)

  • Kudan Usuguré. Twilight at Kudan

  • Diving

  • Lakeside

  • The Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden - Greenhouse

  • Still Life - Hanga Vol.5