Torii Kotondo (1900-1976) | Combing Hair (Kamusuki) | Showa period, 20th century

In 1929, Kotondo was commissioned by the Kyoto publishers Kawaguchi Jiro and Sakai Shokichi to design prints in the bijin [lit. beautiful women] genre. The joint publishers would go on to issue the majority of Kotondo's small oeuvre of woodblock prints on the subject, which was largely restricted to the early Showa period between 1927-1935. The adopted son of Torii Kiyotada IV (1875–1941), Kotondo was the seventh-generation head of the Torii school of ukiyo-e printmakers and a Nihonga style painter who had studied under Kaburagi Kiyokata (1878-1972) alongside Ito Shinsui (1898-1972).

Combing Hair is the artist’s third print under this collaboration, a departs from his contemporary Shinsui’s approach to the nude in various subtle ways. The application of the goma-zuri [lit. sesame seed printing] appears more subdued and there is a more or less austere range of colour palette. The focal point of the design is the curvaceous linework and rotundness which is convincingly rendered by leaving areas of the contours unprinted. Elegantly sitting to the side, the voluptuous yet delicately featured model commands the space within the design. 

For another impression of the same print in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, accession number 2002.161.135, go to:

https://collections.artsmia.org/art/62440/combing-hair-torii-kotondo