Un-ichi Hiratsuka (1895-1997) GARDEN OF OBAI MONASTERY, Daitoku-ji, Obaiin no Niwa, The Garden of Obaiin of Daitoku Temple Woodblock, 1963, signed l.r. and numbered 29/50 in pencil, bearing the artist's seal image 38.5 x 46cm, framed and glazed A master printmaker and leading exponent of the sosaku hanga movement, Unichi Hiratsuka’s stark compositions - mostly in black and white, which he described as ‘the most beautiful of colours’ - are held in many renowned collections, including the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Tokyo Museum of Modern Art. Hiratsuka was given the Order of Cultural Merit by the Japanese government in 1970 and the Hiratsuka Unichi Print Museum was opened in Suzaka in 1991. Much of his later years were spent teaching and exhibiting in the US, but he did eventually return to Japan, where he died in 1997 at the age of 102. This design is in the Van Zelst Family Collection, famous Hiratsuka collectors.