Tōshi Yoshida

(1911 - 1995)

Toshi was the oldest son of shin-hanga artist Hioroshi Yoshida. During his early childhood one of his legs was paralysed, and was unable to attend school. He enjoyed watching animals, and his father in his printmaking workshop.

His father’s shin-hanga work focussed on landscape art, and this influenced Toshi’s early work, although around 1926 he focussed on animals to distinguish himself from his fathers work, however he later started making landscape prints similar to his fathers work.

Toshi Yoshida was a leading artist in the sosaku-hanga movement, which differed from the ukiyo-e / shin-hanga movements in that the print is self-drawn, woodblocks are self-carved and self-printed by the artist, therefore having full artistic control over their work. Traditional Ukiyo-e prints are produced in a collaborative system where artist, carver, printer and publisher are separate people.

He travelled together with his father to India, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore in the early 1930’s. During World War 2, when art was subject to censorship in Japan, he produced paintings of factory and civilian workers.

After his fathers death in 1950, Toshi changed his artistic direction and produced a series of abstract woodcuts influenced by his brother (Hokada Yoshida).

In 1953 Toshi traveled to the US, Mexico, London, and the Near East, where he presented his work in many galleries.

In 1971, Toshi returned his focus to his original passion for animals, and from 1971 until the end of his career in 1994, he worked exclusively on animal prints. He was also a children’s book illustrator, and wrote his own short stories.