Sadao Watanabe - 葡萄園の比喩 (The Vineyard Labourers)

A fabulous early print by Sadao Watanabe: 葡萄園の比喩 (The Vineyard Labourers). Workers carry grape clusters through patterned vines, while small birds perch among the leaves. The composition recalls Christ’s Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16), its long horizontal format and flowing procession of figures evoking the visual rhythm of a Japanese emaki scroll. ✝️🍇

• Year & Edition: 1958 · Signed and dated in pencil “Sadao Watanabe” to lower right.
  
• Medium: Stencil print (kappazuri) on washi paper.
  
• Dimensions: Sheet H: 60.00 cm × W: 97.00 cm.
  
• Condition: Slight fading to tone; paper stable and intact for age.
  
• Notes: An early washi work preceding Watanabe’s shift to momi-gami, blending biblical parable with Japanese emaki-like narrative rhythm. The parable’s theme of equal reward and grace is echoed in the shared labour of the vineyard. *Original gallery label verso.

About the Artist

Sadao Watanabe (1913-1996) was Japan’s foremost Christian printmaker, celebrated for bold 合羽摺 (kappa-zuri) stencil prints on textured momigami paper. A student of 芹沢銈介 Keisuke Serizawa and shaped by 柳宗悦 Yanagi Sōetsu’s mingei movement, he devoted his career to retelling Old and New Testament stories through striking elongated figures and rich pigments of colour, drawing on 型染め (katazome) dye-resist techniques. Particularly collectable, his works are widely held, with examples at MoMA, the British Museum, the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (MOMAT), and the Vatican. [ ← View All Works by Sadao Watanabe]