Kiyoshi Saito

Kiyoshi Saito (Japanese 1907-1997)

Kiyoshi Saito was one of the first artists of the Japanese sosaku hanga movement whose art became successful and was widely accepted and awarded by an international audience. Today he is regarded as one of the great masters of modern Japanese printmaking after the end of the war in 1945.

Kiyoshi Saito was born in 1907 in a small village named Bange in the Kawanuma District of Fukushima prefecture in the northern part of Honshu, the main Japanese island. When he was five years old, his father lost his business in Fukushima and the family moved further north to the island of Hokkaido, where his father worked in the coal mines in Otaru.

When Kiyoshi Saito was thirteen years old, his mother died and he was sent away to become the guardian of a buddhist temple. He tried to escape but failed. Nevertheless the priests allowed him to return home.

The acquaintance with Koshiro Onchi, artist himself and mentor of the sosaku hanga movement, soon opened doors to famous galleries, where most notably American purchasers took an interest in Saito's work.

Kiyoshi Saito emerged as Japan's most productive woodblock print artist, whose editions soon found worldwide markets. Sosaku Hanga artists were, however, first dismissed in the Japanese art world and their works were considered concessions to American tastes.

This abruptly changed however in 1951 at the first Sao Paulo Art Biennial, when a panel of judges gave prizes not to distinguished artists for oil paintings and sculptures but rather to two Hanga artists: for the etchings of Tetsuro Komai as well as to Kiyoshi Saito for a woodblock print. The Japanese art world was shocked.

Saito's work was henceforth displayed in important exhibitions and purchased for renowned collections. Saito was also often sought after as an illustrator for newspapers or as a commercial graphic designer.

This new recognition and increased demand for his work brought Saito wealth and enabled him and his family to purchase their own home in 1970 in Kamakura on the outskirts of Tokyo, and another in 1987 in his homeland Fukushima.

Affiliations

  • 1944-62 - Japanese Print Association.
  • Since 1949 - Kokugakai Art Association.

Exhibitions and Awards
  • 1936 - Japanese Print Association, Tokyo, Japan.
  • 1939-40 - Nikakai-Exhibition, Tokyo, Japan.
  • 1942 - Exhibition in the Kyukyodo Gallery, Tokyo, Japan.
  • 1946 - Kokugakai-Exhibition, Tokyo, Japan.
  • 1948 - Salon du Printemps, First Place, Mejiro, Tokyo, Japan.
  • 1951-70 - Annual Exhibition in Mitsukoshi Department Store, Nohonbashi, Tokyo, Japan.
  • 1951 - International Biennal in Print Design in Sao Paulo, First Place in Japanese category, Brazil.
  • 1955 - "Saito and His Associates", Seattle Art Museum, USA.
  • 1956 - Asia Foundation, USA and Mexico.
  • 1956 - "Munakata and Saito", Chuokoron-sha Gallery, Tokyo, Japan.
  • 1957 - Exhibition, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., USA.
  • 1964 - Exhibition, Honolulu Academy of Arts, USA.
  • 1969 - Exhibition at Greater Victoria Museum, Kanada, and at San Diego Museum, USA.
  • 1976 - Retrospective, Fukushima Cultural Center and Odakyu Department Store, Tokyo, Japan.
  • 1977 - National Museum in Prague, Czechoslovakia.
  • 1981 - Service Medal from the Japanese Government, 4th Class
  • 1983 - 245 Works at Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Art, Mie Museum of Modern Art and Odakyu Department Store, Tokyo, Japan.
  • 1984 - Exhibition, Hakudotei Gallery, Tokyo, Japan.
  • 1988 - Otaru Municipal Museum, Hokkaido, Japan.
  • 1988 - Series "Winter in Aizu", Portland, Oregon Museum of Art, USA.
  • 1992 - Kawaguchiko Town Museum and Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art, Japan.
  • 1992 - Odakyu Department Store, Tokyo, Japan.
  • 1993 - Complete Works, Tochigi Cultural Center and Odakyu Department Store, Tokyo, Japan.
  • 1994 - Exhibition, Odakyu Department Store, Tokyo, Japan.

Collections
  • Cincinnati Art Museum, USA.
  • Greater Victoria Museum, Canada.
  • Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA.
  • Achenbach Foundation for the Graphic Arts, San Francisco, USA.
  • Denver Art Museum, USA.
  • New York Public Library, USA.
  • Art Institute of Chicago, USA.
  • Gallery of New South Wales, Australien
  • Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art, Haifa, Israel.
  • Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art, Japan.
  • Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Art, Japan.

Bibliography used for this biography of Kiyoshi Saito

  • 50th CWAJ PRINT SHOW, official Catalogue, Tokyo, 2005.
  • Mary & Norman Tolman, Collecting Modern Japanese Prints Then & Now, Charles E.Tuttle Company, Tokyo, 1994.
  • Blakemore, Frances, Who's Who in Modern Japanese Prints, New York and Tokyo, Weatherhill, 1975.
  • Statler, Oliver, Modern Japanese Prints: An Art Reborn, Tokyo; Tuttle, 1959

 Works