Yoshimune Arai (1873-1945) Japanese, Woodblock Print. Title on back: "Gate of Shrine." Information on labels on back. Part of the Night Scene Series, c. 1910-1920. There is some debate whether Yoshimune Arai is the same person as Utagawa Yoshimune II. If so, he was the eleventh and youngest son of Utagawa Yoshimune I (1817-1880) and spent his childhood residence in the Kinroku-chō area of Tokyo. 

Overall: 11 3/4 x 14 3/4 in. 

Sight: 7 x 9 1/2 in.

#3124 . 

The Night Scene Series was first published by the Tokyo-based printer Hasegawa-Nishinomiya, c. 1910-20. The series of twenty-one chuban prints illustrated evening views of the Sumida River evocative of traditional Japan in a limited palette of sepia, blue, and black ink. The collaborative series included the work of Koho Shoda (1871-1946), Yoshimune Arai (1873-1945), Kobayashi Kiyochika (1847-1915), Suzuki Gyosui (1898-?) and Kobayashi Eijiro (1870-1946). A 1920s catalog issued by Hasegawa-Nishinomiya illustrated each of the twenty-one designs with titles. Although ukiyo-e prints had dwindled in favor since the latter half of the Meiji era, Shin-hanga (“new woodcut prints”) was an art movement in early 20th Century Japan during the Taishō and Shōwa periods that revitalized the traditional process. It maintained the traditional ukiyo-e collaborative system (hanmoto system) where the artist, carver, printer, and publisher engaged in division of labor, as opposed to the parallel sōsaku-hanga (creative prints) movement. However, the ability to mass produce works, coupled with the autocratic blight on creative work due to the more militant regime, led to fewer artists achieving the individual recognition that their predecessors had. Little is known about Gyosui, Arai, or Eijiro, who may have been a student of the last great ukiyo-e artist Kobayashi Kiyochika (1847-1915), and the destruction of World War II also obliterated many records and works by artists of the time, making pieces from this period extremely rare and interesting.