吉田穂高 Hodaka Yoshida (1926-1995)

Forging His Own Legacy: The Prints of Hodaka Yoshida

Born in Tokyo in 1926, Hodaka Yoshida was the son of renowned shin-hanga artist Hiroshi Yoshida and modernist painter Fujio Yoshida, and the younger brother of Toshi Yoshida. While his family legacy was deeply rooted in the traditions of Japanese woodblock printmaking, Hodaka pursued a very different path. Initially encouraged to study science, he earned a degree in biology, but his fascination with poetry, oil painting, and European modernists such as Paul Klee and Joan Miró soon led him to the arts. The collapse of Japan’s official art institutions after World War II gave him the freedom to explore abstraction and symbolism, laying the groundwork for a highly individual and internationally focused career.

From the early 1950s onward, Hodaka developed a dynamic and evolving body of work across woodblock, silkscreen, lithography, etching, and photo-based techniques. His prints drew on global cultural references - from pre-Columbian artifacts and folk traditions to modern urban architecture - and moved through a series of distinct thematic periods, including his Primitive, Mythological, and Wall series. In 1953, he married the artist Chizuko Yoshida, and the two began exhibiting abroad, beginning with travels to Mexico and the United States. Like his father before him, Hodaka found in travel both aesthetic inspiration and a framework for rethinking identity and place in a rapidly changing world.

Over a career spanning four decades, Hodaka produced more than six hundred prints and exhibited in over thirty countries. He served as Vice President of the International Artists Association and was a member of the Japan Artists’ Association. Though stylistically distinct from the Yoshida studio tradition, his work profoundly expanded its legacy - introducing modernist experimentation, non-linear narratives, and a global perspective to one of Japan’s most storied artistic families. He passed away in 1995, leaving behind a remarkable legacy continued by his wife Chizuko and their daughter, the contemporary artist Ayomi Yoshida.