Born: 1888 Tokyo, Japan
Died: 1953 Tokyo, Japan
Year of Migration to the UK: 1910
Other name/s: Yoshijiro Urushibara, Urushibara Yoshijiro, F Urushibaba
Biography
Printmaker Urushibara Mokuchu was born on 12 March 1888 in Tokyo, Japan, into an artistic family, his grandfather being a calligrapher and self-taught woodcutter. From a young age, Urushibara immersed himself in the traditional Japanese arts of carving and printing woodblocks, honing skills that would later define his career and impact across continents.
Aged 19, Urushibara travelled to London to demonstrate Japanese woodblock printing at the Anglo-Japanese Exhibition of 1910, a pivotal moment that showcased Japan's rich culture and art to the Western world. The exhibition attracted millions, including 500,000 visitors on a single day, emphasising the immense interest and fascination with Japanese culture (Corbett 2015). Among the exhibits, Urushibara’s demonstrations stood out, captivating audiences with the intricate and delicate art of woodblock printmaking, a skill that had waned in Europe. Urushibara’s decision to remain in London following the exhibition marked the beginning of a significant chapter in his career and the broader narrative of East-West cultural exchange. He was invited to demonstrate printmaking at Leicester School of Art by John Edgar Platt, thereby facilitating the dissemination of Japanese printmaking methods to a wider audience. Notably, Morley Fletcher, who is believed to have been taught by Urushibara, later taught at the School of Art in Reading. One of Fletcher's students, Allen Seaby, was greatly influenced by Urushibara's work (Holner 2022, p. 435). Urushibara also gave demonstrations at the Art Workers' Guild.
Urushibara became a beacon of the woodblock printmaking tradition, reviving interest in a craft that had declined in favour of wood engraving. He embraced the ideals of the sōsaku hangamovement, advocating for jiga (self-drawn), jijoku (self-carved), and jizuri (self-printed) principles, resonating with the Arts and Crafts movement's emphasis on the unity of design and craftsmanship. Urushibara was a master at capturing the essence of his subjects, from the bustling Paris streets to the serene landscapes of Stonehenge. His kachō-e (bird and flower) prints depicted lively images of horses and atmospheric landscapes with great subtlety and refinement. Urushibara’s work was characterised by soft edges, skillful use of colour gradations, and an ability to produce different versions of a print using the same blocks. in 1912–13, he created the woodblock facsimile of the Admonitions handscroll painting commissioned by British curator and art critic, Sidney Colvin.
In England Urushibara collaborated with Japanese artists, Markino Yoshio and Kurihara Chūji, as well as British artists, Sir George Clausen, John Sell Cotman, and James McBey. However, his most notable collaboration was with the Belgium-born, British artist Frank Brangwyn, with whom he forged a lasting friendship. Their collaboration resulted in a number of significant works, including large single prints, smaller prints, ephemera, and notably, three portfolios. The Bruges portfolio from 1919 stood out, featuring six large colour woodcuts and poetry by Lawrence Binyon, complemented by colour woodcut headpieces. A smaller portfolio from 1924, titled Ten Woodcuts Cut and Printed by Yoshijiro Urushibara after Scenes by Frank Brangwyn, was produced in a limited edition of 270. The final portfolio, dating from 1940, was Leaves from the Sketch Books of Frank Brangwyn in which Urushibara's woodcut reproductions of Brangwyn's drawings were executed with such finesse that they were often indistinguishable from the originals (Chapman 2016, p. 33). Additionally, they worked together on the Catalogue of Etchings and Woodcuts by Frank Brangwyn, a comprehensive publication produced to accompany exhibitions or sales of Brangwyn's work. Urushibara’s role in this project was crucial, as it involved creating or reproducing Brangwyn's images in the woodblock print format, thereby serving as both a record of Brangwyn's graphic works and a testament to their fruitful collaboration. Their work was not only appreciated by contemporaries and collectors (including Sir Winston Churchill) but also contributed to the broader recognition of woodblock printing as a versatile and expressive art form. Between 1912 and 1920, Urushibara was employed on a temporary basis by the British Museum on the challenging task of mounting the Aurel Stein collection of Dunhuang paintings and teaching traditional Japanese mounting techniques to staff. Urushibara's own exhibitions included displays at the International Society at the Grosvenor Gallery, London in 1919. From 1922 onwards, he showed at the annual exhibitions of the Society of Graver-Printers in Colour and the Royal Academy of Arts summer exhibitions on six occasions, between 1923 and 1939.
In October 1940, the Japanese Embassy urgently recommended that Urushibara left the country due to the looming threat of Japan's involvement in the Second World War. Upon his forced return to Tokyo, he resumed his printmaking sporadically, yet this relocation resulted in both personal and financial hardships. Urushibara died in Tokyo, Japan in 1950. In the UK public domain, Urushibara's work is represented in the British Museum collection. In 2017, examples of Urushibara’s collaborative work with Brangwyn featured in Sheer Pleasure, Frank Brangwyn and the Art of Japan at the William Morris Gallery, London.
Related books
- Libby Holner, ‘Urushibara Mokuchū (1889–1953): Japanese Print Artist in Britain’, in Hugh Cortazzi ed., Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, Vol. VII (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2022), pp. 433-442
- Hilary Chapman, Libby Horner and Rebecca Salter, Yoshijiro Urushibara: a Japanese Printmaker in London: a Catalogue Raisonné (Leiden: Hotei Publishing, 2017)
- Hilary Chapman, 'Yoshijiro Urushibara and Frank Brangwyn: A Question of Size', Print Quarterly XXXIII, 2016, pp. 31-6
- Michelle Ying Ling Huang, Beyond Boundaries: East and West Cross-Cultural Encounters (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Pub., 2011), p. 98
- Robin Garton, British Printmakers 1855-1955 (Wiltshire: Garton & Co. in association with Scolar Press, 1992)
- Frank Brangwyn and Yoshijiro Urushibara, Leaves from the Sketch Books of Frank Brangwyn Cut by Urushibara (Leigh-on-Sea: F. Lewis, 1940)
- Frank Brangwyn, Yoshijiro Urushibara, and Laurence Binyon, Ten Woodcuts: Cut and Printed in Colour by Yoshijiro Urushibara (London: John Lane the Bodley Head Limited, 1924)
- Malcolm C. Salaman, Mr. Urushibara's Wood-block Colour-prints (London: Studio, 1924)
- Frank Brangwyn, Bruges, with drawings by Frank Brangwyn and woodcuts by Yoshijiro Urushibara (London: Morland Press, 1919)
Public collections
Related organisations
- Art Workers' Guild (teacher)
- Leicester School of Art (teacher)
- Society of Graver-Printers in Colour (member)
Related web links
- Art Platform Japan
- ‘An Extraordinary Life’, Shimbun, Vol 47, 2015, pp. 12-13
- Japanese Gallery
- Royal Academy of Arts exhibition catalogue archives
- Yoshijiro
Selected exhibitions
- Circles of Stone: Stonehenge and Prehistoric Japan, Stonehenge (2022)
- Sheer Pleasure, Frank Brangwyn and the Art of Japan, William Morris Gallery, London (2017)
- Annual Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London (1939, 1933, 1931)
- Japanese Prints, Camera Club, London (1929)
- Annual Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London (1926,1924, 1923)
- International Society, Grosvenor Gallery, London (1919)
