Plow Horse 代掻ぐ馬 (Shirokagu Uma) - Iwao Akiyama 秋山巌 (1921-2014) - 日本

On auction is a limited edition print from 1978, which was part of an exclusive and rare set of 10 prints. Mr. Akiyama depicted prints of animals and deity. Of his animal prints, the owl was his favorite subject, followed by the cat. The horse is a rare subject for Mr. Akiyama. So it is interesting that he chooses to depict a plow horse, a real working horse known to be strong and muscled. But still he depicted the horse in a playful and joyous manner, giving it a lot of beauty.

These prints were originally intended to be stored in a large map and taken out from time to time to admire. For this reason, the prints were attached to passe-partouts to give them extra support. On the print there are tape marks, which will not be visible when framed. This print has never been framed and was always stored in a dark space.

Iwao Akiyama (秋山 巌, March 21, 1921 – September 15, 2014) was a Japanese woodblock printmaker and artist known for distinctive prints of deity, owls, cats, and other animals in the style of naïve or folk art.

Akiyama was born in 1921 in Takeda, Ōita Prefecture, on the island of Kyushu. He studied drawing under the direction of a Buddhist monk during his childhood, then at the Taiheiyo Bijutsu Gakkō, graduating 1956. He originally pursued suiboku-ga, a type of ink painting. However, Akiyama changed his focus to woodblock printing after meeting Shikō Munakata, under whom he studied from 1959 until 1965.

Akiyama's prints are primarily made in black ink, and early ones contained a single red dot within the image, although later works sometimes feature more colors. In his prints, Akiyama limited himself to few subjects: animals, nude female figures, Buddhist deities and Buddhist monks. Akiyama's work often incorporated verses of haiku and other text by Japanese poets like Ryōkan Taigu, Kobayashi Issa, and Zen monk Santōka Taneda, as well as from his own original poetry. (Source: Wikipedia)