Kasamatsu Shirō (笠松紫浪) (artist 1898 – 1991)

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Biography:

Laurence Roberts wrote: "Painter, printmaker. Studied painting with Kaburagi Kiyokata. His prints date from 1919; one of the few contemporary printmakers to carve his own blocks and do his own printing. His subjects included landscape and portraits; in prints he specialized in landscapes, particularly views of Tōkyō."

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Shinsui and Hasui were also students of Kiyokata.

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In a 2019 exhibition at St. Catherine University in St. Paul the curatorial biographical note stated: "Kasamatsu Shiro explored various styles, mediums, and subjects in the shin-hanga (new print, 新版画) movement. While grounded in painting, he expanded into printmaking for publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō, who took a liking to his work and published numerous prints by the artist in the 1930s. After working with Watanabe for over twenty years, he entered into the Unsōdō studio where he created his most famous work, Eight Views of Tokyo, and explored different subjects such as the bird-and-flower genre (kacho-e, 花鳥絵)."

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In 1960 Shiro and others broke with Unsōdō, which continued to publish the works he had already marketed with them, but with slight changes in the woodblock. Shiro, himself, became a sosaku-hanga printer, carving, inking his own designs.