Limited Edition Japanese Woodblock print "Autumn Garden" by Kazuyuki Ohtsu , 1999

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Limited edition Japanese woodblock print "Autumn Garden" by  Kazuyuki Ohtsu , 1999

A Landscape of Quiet Grandeur

This exceptional woodblock print by Kazuyuki Ohtsu is a masterwork of postwar Japanese printmaking — a luminous autumn landscape rendered with bold, flat planes of colour, expressive texture, and a deeply meditative stillness. Crimson maples blaze against a warm ochre sky; ghostly silver birches recede into rolling hills; a winding gravel path draws the eye deep into a forest of dark, twisting trunks and layered greens. The composition is pure landscape — no human presence, no distraction. Only nature, silence, and the fleeting intensity of autumn at its peak.

The print is titled Autumn Garden, dated 1999, and numbered 33 from an edition of just 58 impressions — ensuring genuine rarity. It is signed in pencil in the lower margin (Kazuyuki Ohtsu), bears the artist’s personal red seal (hanko) in the lower left corner of the image, and is presented in its original handsome walnut-toned frame with white archival mount.

Complete provenance in the margin: title, edition number (33/58), date (1999), pencil signature, and artist’s seal — all present and clear.

The Artist: Kazuyuki Ohtsu (b. 1935)

Born in 1935 in Isezaki City, Gunma Prefecture, and raised as the thirteenth child in a family of silk weavers, Ohtsu left home at eighteen to train in Tokyo at the Umehara Hanga Studio. In 1958 he became an assistant to Kiyoshi Saito — one of the foremost figures in the sōsaku-hanga movement — and worked alongside him until Saito’s death in 1997. During those four decades, Ohtsu mastered every stage of the printmaking process: painting the original design, carving each block by hand, and pulling proofs himself. 

Only after the passing of his master did Ohtsu step fully into his own independent career — a decision that reflects the deep Japanese virtue of loyalty to one’s sensei.  His prints present a nostalgic and romanticized vision of Japan’s past: rolling hills, stone gardens, aged farmhouses, cherry trees, snow-covered villages — scenes rendered with the intricate artistry that only decades of hands-on craft can produce. 

His Master: Kiyoshi Saito (1907–1997) — Icon of Sōsaku-Hanga

Kiyoshi Saito was a key figure in the Japanese sōsaku-hanga movement and gained international acclaim for his contributions to modern Japanese woodblock printmaking after World War II. Today he is regarded as one of the most important print artists of 20th-century Japan. 

In the spirit of sōsaku-hanga, Saito engaged with every aspect of the printmaking process — each work self-drawn, self-carved, and self-printed. As his style evolved, his designs became increasingly two-dimensional, distinguished by bold blocks of colour, refined compositions, and rich surface texture.  He rose to international fame after winning first place at the São Paulo Biennale in 1951, and was later commissioned to create a woodblock print portrait of Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku Sato for the cover of Time magazine. 

Ohtsu absorbed all of this — the discipline, the craft philosophy, the visual language — over nearly forty years at Saito’s side. Autumn Garden is the fruit of that extraordinary formation.

The Tradition: Japanese Woodblock Printing

Woodblock printing (mokuhanga) is one of Japan’s most demanding and revered art forms, with roots in the Edo period ukiyo-e tradition. In its sōsaku-hanga form — pioneered in the 20th century — the artist alone conceives, carves, and prints each impression by hand. A single colour print may require the carving of multiple separate blocks, each inked and registered with millimetre precision. The characteristic surface texture visible in this print — that rich, granular depth across the greens and reds — is the direct imprint of carved wood grain on washi paper: something no digital or photomechanical process can replicate. It is the texture of human hands and time.

Condition & Presentation

The impression is excellent — vivid, saturated colour throughout with no fading, foxing, or damage. The work is presented in its original walnut-toned frame with wide white archival mount, ready to hang.

Dimensions (framed): H 59 × W 77 × D 2.6 cm / H 23.2 × W 30.3 × D 1 in

A rare opportunity to acquire a fully documented, framed limited edition by one of Japan’s most devoted — and long under appreciated — masters of the woodblock print.

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

The print will be shipped insured overseas in a custom made wooden case. 
Cost of transport to the US, Euro 245, is case included.

Wear consistent with age and use.

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