Oriental Masterprint – 6, from the series Oriental Masterprints

1975

Not on view

In this series, Oriental Masterprints, Shimomura combines twentieth-century American Pop Art with imagery from traditional eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Japanese woodblock prints; he explores his Japanese American identity within contemporary American society through this print series. Shimomura was forced to come face-to-face with his Japanese American cultural identity living in Lawrence, Kansas, one day when he was mistaken as a foreigner and questioned by a local as to why he spoke English so well. Around the same time Shimomura saw a children’s coloring book based on “images from the floating world,” or ukiyo-e, and the artist was struck by their foreignness to him. These became the catalyst to the proposed series, Oriental Masterprints, which he produced between 1972 and 1976. Shimomura was already working in a Pop style that shared an aesthetic for flatness and emphasis on surfaces, with the Japanese woodblock prints.

Artwork Details

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Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

Provenance

Title: Oriental Masterprint – 6, from the series Oriental Masterprints
Artist: Roger Shimomura (American, born Seattle 1939)
Date: 1975
Culture: Japan
Medium: Color screen print on wove paper
Dimensions: Image: 15 × 15 in. (38.1 × 38.1 cm)
Overall: 17 × 17 in. (43.2 × 43.2 cm)
Classification: Prints
Credit Line: Gift of Vasco R. Geer III, 2014
Object Number: 2014.216.1
Curatorial Department: Asian Art

More Artwork

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Oriental Masterprint – 10, from the series Oriental Masterprints, Roger Shimomura American, Color screen print on wove paper, Japan — Oriental Masterprint – 10, from the series Oriental Masterprints
Roger Shimomura
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Oriental Masterprint – 7, from the series Oriental Masterprints, Roger Shimomura American, Color screen print on wove paper, Japan — Oriental Masterprint – 7, from the series Oriental Masterprints
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Roger Shimomura : an American diary, Roger Shimomura American — Roger Shimomura : an American diary
Roger Shimomura
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Oriental Masterprint – 8, from the series Oriental Masterprints, Roger Shimomura American, Color screen print on wove paper, Japan — Oriental Masterprint – 8, from the series Oriental Masterprints
Roger Shimomura
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Oriental Masterprint – 22, from the series Oriental Masterprints, Roger Shimomura American, Color screen print on wove paper, Japan — Oriental Masterprint – 22, from the series Oriental Masterprints
Roger Shimomura
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