Brief Biography:
Yowsaku Sekino was born in Tokyo as Jun-ichiro and Katsuko Sekino's second son in 1944 and graduated from Chuo
University's School of Science and Technology in 1968. He worked as a chemist at SMC Corporation but later made a career switch by opening a European-style printmaking workshop. As the owner-technician of the workshop equipped with all the necessary machinery, he assisted various artists to
produce their lithographs, etchings, engravings, drypoints and woodblock prints. Cartoonist Suiho Tagawa had a lasting interest in etching and
visited the workshop regularly.
Sekino initially learned all of the printmaking techniques from his father, Jun-ichiro Sekino, and then polished them by a series of his own experiments. In the 1980s, he decided to become an artist himself specialized in color woodblock printmaking, joined Shun'yo-Kai, and won several awards starting with "Kenkyu
-sho (research award)" at the artists association with a hundred years of history. Since 2007, Nihonbashi Takashimaya's prestigious Bijutsu Garou (art gallery) has shown his woodblock prints every year through his one-man show or a show by a small group of artists comprising him and his peers.
Sekino passed "Koki" in 2014 to become one of the "rare survivors" of age seventy but is still active in producing new art pieces,
planning/opening his shows and publicly demonstrating his techniques of woodblock printmaking in various cities of Japan. His unique style
reflecting his artistic sensitivity and scientific research and precision is evident in the prints displayed here.
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