JUNICHIRO SEKINO Japanese, 1914–1988 Cat with Girl woodblock print Figurative print depicting a young girl with wispy hair and a red bow, seated and cradling a white cat in her arms. Pencil signed lower right. Framed. Not examined out of frame. 12 x 10 inches; frame: 17 x 14.5 inches $100-150
ARTIST PROFILE: Jun'ichiro Sekino (1914–1988) was a Japanese woodblock printmaker born in Aomori City, where he grew up alongside fellow artist Shiko Munakata, later dubbed the "Japanese Picasso." He moved to Tokyo in 1939 and studied under Koshiro Onchi, founder of the sosaku-hanga ("creative print") movement, becoming a founding member of Onchi's Ichimokukai study group and blending traditional Japanese woodblock techniques with Western etching and lithography. Renowned for his portraits of kabuki actors, sumo wrestlers, and geishas, as well as his celebrated "Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido" series (1959–1974), Sekino taught at Pratt Institute, Oregon State University, and Kobe University, exhibited internationally with works entering the collections of MoMA and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and received Japan's Purple Medal Ribbon in 1981 before his death in 1988.
