Yozo Hamaguchi (Japanese, 1909-2000)

Available Works

Yozo Hamaguchi is widely regarded as one of the finest mezzotint artists in the history of the medium. Mezzotint is an engraving process which employs a metal (usually copper) plate. Using a steel tool called a rocker, the mezzotint artist creates an all-over texture in the plate. This texture, if printed intaglio, results in a deep, rich field of black. Then the artist uses scraping and burnishing tools to gradually remove texture from areas of the plate, creating a range of values from dark to light. The resulting image has the unmistakable luminosity of a print created using this process.

When Hamaguchi left Tokyo for Paris in 1930, the mezzotint technique, once indispensable for creating photo-realistic reproductions of paintings, had been rendered obsolete by photogravure since the late 19th century. Nevertheless, at the suggestion of poet e. e. cummings, Hamaguchi began producing mezzotints in the late 1930s and never turned back. Rich in surface and hauntingly poetic in detail, Hamaguchi's saturated color mezzotints breathed new life into an arcane process for nearly six decades, establishing him as one of the premier print artists of the 20th century. The Antique Print Department is proud to exhibit a diverse group of Hamaguchi's mezzotints during the month of March, including rare early works as well as selections from Hamaguchi's association with Vorpal Gallery.

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