Asama IV

 

Kunito Nagaoka

  1940 - PRESENT (biography)

1980  

color etching 

5 1/8 x 6 7/8" platemark 

pencil, lower right 

26 of 50  

pencil dated after signature and editioned in lower left; artist's chop in lower right "Original Print Kunito Nagaoka"; printer's chop in lower left "Radierwerkstatt Schlemme Berlin" 

 

heavy, antique-white Hahnemuehle/Kupferdruckpapier wove 

published 

John Szoke Graphics, New York, 1981 

20400 

SOLD

"Asama IV" is a from a portfolio of five colored etchings printed by Michael Schlemme in Berlin from two copper plates and in three colors. Mount Asama is an active complex volcano located in Japan in central Honshu. The volcano is 8,425 feet above sea level. It has had frequent eruptions, including 2004, 2008 and 2009. Kunito Nagaoka comments:"Registered eruptions with varying degrees of force: 1954: 287 - 1955: 46 - 1956: 0 - 1957: 0 - 1958: 263 (major eruption on 11.10.58)" "The meance of the volcano consolidates a knowledge of the powerless dependence of the whole existence of my family who were so close to the land. After a landslide I see in the thin layers of the ages, the finality of all life and the new rice from the deadly ash."