Sadao Watanabe - 三頭の馬 (Three horses)

A fabulous print by Sadao Watanabe: 三頭の馬 (Three Horses). Three boldly patterned horses stand together with decorative saddles and bridles, framed by vivid zigzagging lines on bright yellow momi-gami paper. Two perched birds add a playful note, where Watanabe’s kappazuri stencil technique recalls the rhythm of textile patterning and folk craft design. 🐎🐦✨

• Year & Edition: 1975 · Edition 42/70 (signed & editioned in white ink).
  
• Medium: Stencil print (kappazuri) on momi-gami paper.
  
• Dimensions: Sheet H: 61.50 cm × W: 68.50 cm; Image H: 47.50 cm × W: 62.50 cm.
  
• Condition: Excellent; colour strong and vibrant, paper clean, intact, and unblemished.
  
• Notes: A delightful departure from Watanabe’s biblical themes, this composition highlights his ability to fuse Christian-inspired stencil craft with decorative folk-art sensibilities. Smaller edition size (70) makes it an especially desirable print among collectors.

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]