Rural Japanese New Year's Bonfire

Junichiro Sekino (1914 - 1988) was born in Aomori City, Japan. He was a Japanese printmaker who gained fame for his outstanding portraits of kabuki actors, sumo wrestlers, and geishas. His picturesque depictions of mountains and forest streams were also completed in a unique style that combined Western and Japanese aesthetics. Sekino studied under Koshiro Onchi, founder of the sosaku-hanga (creative prints) movement, which encouraged self-expression. It was with Onchi in Tokyo where Sekino learned Japanese woodblock printing, Western-style etching, and painting. In 1936, Sekino won the Teiten Prize for etching and subsequently became a member of the Nihon Hanga Kyokai (Japan Print Association). He began teaching at Kobe University in Japan in 1965, where he continued until his death in 1988 in Tokyo. Sekino's works can be found in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, among others.