Details

In Rain in Ginza, Tsuchiya Koitsu presents Tokyo’s celebrated boulevard beneath a curtain of evening rain, where electric light, wet pavement, and deep midnight blues merge into an atmosphere of extraordinary quiet drama. Automobiles glide along the reflective avenue while pedestrians carrying umbrellas move beneath glowing storefronts and illuminated streetlamps. The elegant willow trees that line the boulevard sway softly beside the slick pavement, their dark forms silhouetted against the radiance of the city. Koitsu orchestrates the composition through carefully controlled contrasts between darkness and illumination, allowing reflections upon the rain-soaked street to become the true emotional center of the design.

The print captures Ginza at the height of its identity as Tokyo’s modern promenade district during the early Shōwa period. Following reconstruction after the Great Kantō Earthquake, the boulevard emerged as one of the city’s most cosmopolitan spaces, filled with cafés, theaters, department stores, and modern nightlife. Here, fashionable urban life unfolds quietly beneath the rain. The glowing automobiles, electric signage, and carefully ordered architecture evoke a metropolis increasingly shaped by speed, commerce, and modern leisure culture. Yet Koitsu tempers these symbols of modernization with an almost meditative stillness, preserving a sense of poetic atmosphere within the expanding city.

Within the context of this exhibition, Koitsu’s treatment of Ginza reveals a striking contrast with contemporary Sōsaku Hanga interpretations of the modern city. While many Sōsaku Hanga artists emphasized expressive carving, experimental abstraction, or psychologically charged depictions of urban life, Koitsu approaches the subject through the polished refinement and atmospheric precision characteristic of Shin Hanga. The city here is neither fragmented nor aggressively modernist; instead, it is transformed into a luminous theatrical stage shaped by rain, reflection, and carefully modulated light. The print demonstrates how Shin Hanga artists adapted traditional collaborative craftsmanship to depict modern Tokyo while preserving elegance, balance, and emotional restraint.

Connoisseur's Note

Tsuchiya Koitsu remains one of the most celebrated masters of Shin Hanga nocturnes, admired for his extraordinary ability to render rain, mist, snow, and evening light with remarkable technical sophistication. A student of Kobayashi Kiyochika, Koitsu inherited a sensitivity to atmospheric urban subjects while refining them into compositions of exceptional calm and visual clarity. His prints from the 1930s occupy a particularly important place within modern Japanese printmaking, balancing nostalgia for Edo-period lyricism with fascination for the transformed capital of modern Tokyo.

The present impression is especially significant as an exceedingly rare first state bearing the original series cartouche. Published by Doi Sadaichi, whose workshop was renowned for producing some of the finest Shin Hanga designs of the period, the print exemplifies the highest level of collaborative craftsmanship in prewar Japanese woodblock publishing. Early-state impressions such as this are highly prized for the subtlety of their printing, richness of color, and preservation of the original design elements often altered or omitted in later editions.