Japanese Sosaku Hanga B/W Yasaka Pagoda woodblock print by Harunori Kobayashi

“Yasaka Pagoda in the Rain” — Harunori Kobayashi, Original Signed Woodblock Print, 1978, Kyoto, Japan (17/30)

A quietly cinematic view of old Kyoto: two figures shelter beneath umbrellas as they pass beneath the eaves of Higashiyama’s machiya rooftops, the five-story silhouette of the Yasaka Pagoda rising behind them into a sky streaked with driving rain. Harunori Kobayashi builds the composition entirely from bold, angular black strokes against a mottled grey ground — a graphic, almost woodcut-noir treatment of a scene that has been painted and printed by countless Japanese artists, rendered here with unusual dynamism and a strong sense of weather and movement.

The print is titled, dated, and signed “H. Kobayashi” in pencil by the artist, numbered 17/30 from a small edition, and stamped with the artist’s red seal (jitsuin) lower left, with a second red seal accompanying the signature at lower right. Executed in 1978, the sheet measures 47.5 x 33 cm (18.7 x 13 in).

The Yasaka Pagoda, formally the pagoda of Hokan-ji Temple, is one of Kyoto’s most photographed landmarks — a five-story wooden structure in the Higashiyama district whose foundations are said to date back over 1,400 years, with the current tower rebuilt in 1440 after a fire. Rising above the narrow lanes near Sannen-zaka and Ninen-zaka, it remains a defining silhouette of old Kyoto, and has long drawn painters and printmakers seeking to capture the interplay of traditional rooftops and the pagoda’s distinctive spire.

Little biographical detail on Harunori Kobayashi circulates in Western print literature — his work surfaces occasionally on the market as part of the wave of independent, self-carved and self-printed sosaku hanga (“creative print”) artists working in Japan through the 1970s–80s, who favored personal, often monochrome interpretations of historic sites over the polished, publisher-driven shin-hanga tradition. This scarcity of documentation, paired with a modest edition size of only 30, adds to the print’s appeal as a find for collectors of postwar Japanese printmaking.

A striking, atmospheric addition to any collection of Kyoto imagery or 20th-century Japanese graphic art.

Condition: Very good.

Colors may slightly vary due to photographic lighting sources or your monitor settings.

The print will be shipped insured oversea. Cost of transport to the US, Euro 125.

Wear consistent with age and use.

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