Yozo Hamaguchi: Master of the Mezzotint | January 19 - March 18, 2018

YOZO HAMAGUCHI MASTER OF THE MEZZOTINT Museum of Art - DeLand January 19 - March 18, 2018

MASTER OF THE MEZZOTINT Yozo Hamaguchi was born in 1909, in Wakayama, Japan and studied sculpture at the Tokyo Art School in 1927. He left Tokyo in 1930 to study in France. It was there that Hamaguchi met an international group of artists and writers and became friends with the American poet, E.E. Cummings, who it is noted gave him a set of tools for making mezzotints. In 1939, with the advent of World War II, Hamaguchi went back to Japan but returned to Paris in 1953 where he began creating award winning copperplate etchings and monochrome prints. Around 1955, Hamaguchi developed a process for creating color mezzotints.

In the mezzotint process the artist employs a tool called a rocker which is a curved chisel style blade with fine comb-like teeth on a copper plate to produce an image with soft, subtle gradations of tone. The rocker is moved back and forth over the surface of a copper plate resulting in myriad pits and burrs that will hold the printing ink. At this stage if the surface were inked a solid deep black tone would emerge. To achieve contrast in the tonality of the design, the artist scrapes and burnishes select areas of the copper surface to smooth out parts of the roughened plate; the smoother the surface the lighter the tone of the print. Once the surface of the plate is satisfactory, the artist inks the plate, and pulls a completed print.

The beguiling elegance of technique and simplicity of subject matter are hallmarks of Yozo Hamaguchi’s mezzotints; a laborious process that he is credited with helping to revive as a modern 20th century expressive medium. Although mezzotint printing was developed in the mid-17th century, it fell out of favor as an art technique in the early 18th century with the rise of photography and the commercial publishing industry.

An initial encounter with the mezzotints of Yozo Hamaguchi recalls images of the cosmos. Each print is a vast velvet black sea of space occupied by subtle shapes aglow with sublime color. Grouped together the images form a galaxy evoking a calm, quite, contemplative state where the infinite depth of darkness absorbs all sound. Closer inspection reveals that the glittering heavenly bodies are not stars or planets but suggestions of simplified still life shapes hovering in and on the soft dense background surface that seems to expand and contract simultaneously.

Hamaguchi’s prints reveal a perfect harmony between the Zen-like ascetic qualities and simplicity of his subject matter contrasted by the complexity of the mezzotint technique resulting in a delicate synthesis of Japanese and Western art.

Yozo Hamaguchi died in Tokyo in 2000 at the age of 91, but the work of this modern master of mezzotint continues to be shown and collected internationally.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I want to express my gratitude to the following lenders to this exhibition whose generosity in sharing their

Three Butterflies, 1994, Mezzotint, 4 5/8” x 4 5/8”

works of art is essential to an endeavor of this nature: Walker Fine Art, Mr. and Mrs. Mark Passey, and Carla Gettemeier.

I would like to recognize the Guest Curator of this exhibit, Rock J. Walker, who was most helpful in contributing and in acquiring this work in addition to assisting the curatorial staff with the myriad of logistical details inherent in preparing such an exhibit.

The following donors and businesses merit special appreciation for their support of this presentation and their commitment to this year’s exhibition schedule: Dennis Aylward, Barbara Baugh, Bruce and Carolyn Bigman, Samuel and Donna Blatt, Tom and Jean Burns, Bill and Terri Booth, Thomas and Loretta Chudy, Earl and Patti Colvard, Sal Cristofano and Laura Gosper, Manny De La Vega, Wayne Dickson and Jewel Dickson, Robert Dorian and Linda Colvard Dorian, Lee and Susan Downer, Rich and Lilas George, Susan Griffis, John and Karen Horn, Ed Jackson and Pat HellerJackson, Betty Drees Johnson, Ray and Betty Johnson, Craig Lindsey, Tim and Mary Jeanne Ludwig, Robin May, Greg and Beth Milliken, Dagny and Tommy Robertson, Stephen and Claudia Roth, Judith Thompson, Ian Williams Bottle with Lemon and Red Wall, 1989, Mezzotint, 24 5/8” x 18 3/4” and Nancy Hutson, John and Nancy Wilton, Boulevard Tire Center, E.O. Painter Printing Company, Fleishel Financial Associates, Lane Insurance, Inc., Mainstreet Community Bank, Massey Services, Inc., Publix Supermarket Charities, West Volusia Beacon, W.W. Gay Mechanical Contractor, Inc., Lorna Jean Brooks Foundation, Inc., Duke Energy Foundation, Dorothy M. Gillespie Foundation, Hunter Charitable Foundation, Lacey Family Charitable Foundation, Wells Fargo Foundation, DeLand Breakfast Rotary, DeLand Fall Festival of the Arts, DeLand Rotary Club, Inc., Krewe of Amalee, Krewe Nouveau, Museum Guild, State of Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, City of DeLand, and the County of Volusia.

I would like to acknowledge our Museum’s Board of Trustees, led by General Lee Downer (ret), President, for enabling our institution to realize its ambitious, diverse, and internationally acclaimed fine arts programing.

Finally, I would like to recognize the unfailing support of my staff whose daily achievements are a constant source of encouragement and pride.

George S. Bolge Chief Executive Officer Museum of Art - DeLand

Watermelon, 1981, Mezzotint, 9 3/8” x 21 1/2”

Catalogue Twenty-two Cherries (Green), 1990. Mezzotint, edition hors commerce, 21 ½” x 9 3/8” Twenty-two Cherries (Yellow), 1990, Mezzotint, edition hors commerce, 21 ½” x 9 3/8” Twenty-two Cherries, 1990, Mezzotint, edition 5/35, 21 1/2 “x 9 3/8” Twenty-two Cherries Chin Colie’, 1990, Mezzotint, edition 22/35 XI, 21 ½” x 9 3/4” Twenty-two (Blue), 1990, Mezzotint, edition hors commerce, 21 ½” x 9 3/8” Twenty-two (Magenta), 1992, Mezzotint, edition 43/50, 21 ½” x 9 ¼”

Bottle with Lemon Yellow in Darkness, 1989, Mezzotint, edition 144/180, 24 5/8” x 18 ¾” Bottle with Lemon and Red Wall, 1989, Mezzotint, edition 75/145, 24 5/8” x 18 ¾” A Bit of Field, 1980, Mezzotint, edition 53/90, 9 ¼” x 21 ½” One and One Half (Cherries), 1993, Mezzotint, edition 106/150, 2 ½” x 1 5/8” California Cherries, 1987, Mezzotint, edition 244/350, 1 ¾” x 1 5/8” Ladybug and Leaf (Seven States), 1984, Mezzotint, edition 24/50, 2 5/16” x 1 9/16” (frame size 16” x 58”) Three Butterflies, 1994, Mezzotint, edition 81/90, 4 5/8” x 4 5/8” Watermelon, 1981, Mezzotint, 9 3/8” x 21 ½”

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Front Cover: Magenta Cherries, 1992, Mezzotint, 21 1/2" x 9 1/4"

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