TAKAGI Shiro

Artist – TAKAGI Shirō (高木志朗) was born in 1934 in Hirosaki in Aomori prefecture. He attended the renowned Musashino College of Fine Arts in Tokyo but left in 1958 because of “academic disciplines" without graduation and took private lessons in moku hanga woodblock printmaking with Amano Kunihiro. Takagi Shiro joined the sosaku hanga movement and exhibited with those artist associations, namely Nihon Hanga Kyokai and with Kokugakai, and took part in several renowned international print biennale exhibitions. In 1961 he became a member of the renowned Nihon Hanga Kyokai. He won several renowned awards from the Japan Print Association in 1960 and the Sao Paulo Biennnale in 1967. Some of his favorite subjects are landscapes, birds and castles.

Shiro Takagi's prints were published at a certain phase of his career by Watanabe Print House (版元渡邊版畫店). The Watanabe print shop was the epitome of the shin hanga art movement. It is supposed that Watanabe was at some stage also involved in the technical realization of his woodblock prints, thus leaving the true way of Shin Hanga. In addition, Takagi also experimented with recut printing blocks of befriended artists.

(1934 - 1998)