Sōsaku-hanga woodblock print Gion Kyoto by Masao Ido 1983
Masao Ido
Sōsaku-hanga woodblock print Gion Kyoto by Masao Ido 1983
A luminous nocturnal view into the heart of Kyoto’s most storied geisha district, this woodblock print by celebrated Kyoto printmaker Masao Ido captures a traditional teahouse façade in Gion — its tiled roof, latticed windows, glowing paper lanterns marked with the syllables of the shop’s name, and an open doorway spilling warm lamplight across the stone entrance. Ido’s signature palette of muted indigo, ochre, and moss green — a tonal register the artist developed himself and referred to as “Ido green” — builds the scene through dozens of individually carved and hand-printed blocks on washi paper, giving the composition a textured, almost woven depth.
Dated 1983 and hand-signed “Masao Ido” in pencil, the sheet is titled in Japanese characters (Gion) and numbered 55 from an edition of 140. It bears the artist’s red seal in the lower right corner of the image — a hallmark of an authentic, artist-approved impression.
The print remains in its original Japanese frame, produced by the Kato Gallery of Tokyo, a framer well regarded among Kyoto-school print publishers for its refined presentation of contemporary hanga. The reverse retains the original Kato label recording the artist, title (“Gion, Kyoto”), medium, and the print’s original 1983 retail price of ¥26,000 including frame — a rare and evocative piece of provenance that ties the work directly to the moment of its first sale.
Frame dimensions: H 40 x W 52 x D 2 cm (H 15.7 x W 20.5 x D 0.8 in)
About the artist: Born in 1945 in Japanese-occupied Manchuria, Masao Ido’s family returned to Japan after the war and eventually settled in Kyoto. He began his career as a textile dyer, designing and dyeing kimono and obi fabric, before discovering the prints of Kiyoshi Saito and turning to woodblock printmaking under masters Yoshida Koho and Otsubo Shigechika. In 1982 — the year before this print was made — Ido opened his own workshop and gallery in Kyoto dedicated to promoting traditional Japanese woodblock printmaking, and went on to teach a younger generation of artists, including Seiji Sano. His prints of Kyoto’s temples, gardens, canals, and old streetscapes are held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Tokyo and Kyoto National Museums, and the Florence Municipal Museum. Ido passed away in Kyoto in 2016.
Style & subject: Working in the sōsaku-hanga (creative print) tradition rather than the older ukiyo-e workshop system, Ido designed, carved, and often printed his own blocks — a hands-on approach that let him achieve his distinctive layered, atmospheric color effects. Gion, Kyoto’s historic entertainment and geisha quarter, was a recurring subject throughout his career, and this nighttime teahouse view is a quintessential early example: quiet, architecturally precise, and charged with the soft glow that defines his best work.
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