Shinano Toga Association
I visited the Okaya Art & Archaeological Museum.
The “Soichiro Masuzawa Exhibition” is currently being held.
Soichiro Masuzawa (1914-1985) was a printmaker from Okaya City.
In conjunction with this exhibition, the “Shinano Toga Society 55th Anniversary Exhibition” was held for only three days. The exhibition was held from Friday, May 16 to Sunday, May 18.
I decided to visit the exhibition after reading an article about it in the newspaper.
The poster for Masuzawa’s exhibition read, “The World of Retro Showa Woodblock Prints".
Soichiro Masuzawa learned printmaking from Takeo Takei. As an elementary school teacher, Masuzawa introduced printmaking, which had previously been taught to adults, into school education and promoted printmaking education.
In 1962, he began teaching printmaking at the Okaya City Community Center’s Adult School. In 1970, students who completed the course formed the “Shinano Toga Association".
The term “Toga” was used by Kanae Yamamoto (1882-1946), who advocated creative printmaking at the end of the Meiji period, and others to describe their own prints. The process of painting the woodblocks black and carving them with a blade was called “Toga” (means: drawing with a knife) because the process looked like drawing with a blade. It seems that the term was mainly used to describe black-and-white prints.
(The history of creative prints and new prints was written in a previous article. Please refer to the link at the end of this article.)
The “Shinano Toga Society,” formed in 1970 by those who attended Soichiro Masuzawa’s courses, has continued its activities with Masuzawa as its instructor.
Masuzawa was also involved in the establishment of the Shinshu Print Association. Masuzawa was one of the founders of the Shinshu Print Association (Shinshu Modern Print Association at the time of its establishment), which was established in 1975 to create a venue for print artists in the prefecture to present their works, and he also served as the association’s president from 1977.
The Shinano Toga Association has also been active as the Okaya branch of the Shinshu Print Association, producing a print calendar every year, holding print exhibitions, and engaging in print study sessions.
The current exhibition was held to commemorate the Hakuju (the age of ninety-nine) of the current instructor, Tamotsu Hayashi, and the 55th anniversary of the association.
However, the main reason I decided to see the exhibition this time was because I heard that they were bringing their activities to an end. Due to the aging of its members and their declining physical strength, this exhibition will be the last.
With permission, I photographed views of the venue.
On display are the works of members and those who have served as instructors for the association.
What interested me was a collection of their works called “Prints Shinano".
When I turned the page, I saw that each postcard-sized print was pasted one by one. It is likely that each person’s work was compiled in this way and distributed to the members.
I thought it was good to preserve them in the form of a collection of works.
The two books on the lower right are a commemorative publication for the 50th anniversary of the Shinano Toga Association and a commemorative publication for the exhibition of works.
The slightly smaller booklets are prints of Senja-fuda, a type of nameplate used at shrines.
Calendars of prints created in the past were also on display.
Although the Shinano Toga Society has come to the end of its activities as a group, the members will continue to create their own works as individuals.
I am also over 60 years old, and although I find it hard to look at a computer screen because of my aging eyes, I felt that I still need to continue creating artwork.
The exhibition of the Shinano Toga Society has ended, but the Soichiro Masuzawa exhibition is currently being held.
Dates: April 18 (Friday) to June 8 (Sunday), 2025.
[Related article]
“Paul Jacoulet and 'Shin-hanga (New Prints)'" (2021-11-13)
[Reference]
“Shinshu Prints: Shinshu Print Association 10th Anniversary Collection" (Yuji Okamura et al. eds. / Shinshu Print Association / 1984)