After Shiki: A train passes, how the smoke swirls round the young leaves (from the Haiga portfolio)

Stanton Macdonald-Wright

This large color woodut is from a series of 20 woodblock prints illustrating haiku poems (1965–6; unpublished) which he printed in Kyoto. This is image number 11, after a haiku by Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902). The woodcuts were carved and printed in a cooperative effort with Clifton Karhu, an American living in Kyoto and a master woodblock artist and printer.

Stanton Macdonald-Wright became increasingly involved with Zen and oriental art, in which he found a source for creating a more serene and transcendent vision. By the 1930’s his themes were inspired by oriental legends and philosophies. He first visited Japan in 1937, and from 1956, he began spending five months each year at a Zen monastery in Kyoto. In the 1940’s he painted Synthetic Cubist works, but following Russell’s death, he returned to Synchromist paintings. During the 1950’s there was renewed interest in his art.

From 1942, he taught oriental philosophy as well as art history at the University of California in Los Angeles. His last significant work was the "Haiga" folio.