Masami Teraoka (寺岡政美) (artist 1936)
AIDS Series / Geisha in Bath
2008
13.915 in x 20.475 in (Overall dimensions) Japanese woodblock print
Signed: "Masami Teraoka" and numbered 5/75 in pencil on verso
Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art
Asian Art Museum
Mount Holyoke College of Art Museum - signed on the back in pencil 'Masami Teraoka' #26/75 In 1985-1986 Masami Teraoka began his 'Aids Series', a series of watercolors and prints on the impact of aids. Among his subjects were geisha who seemed to comprehend the urgency of the situation, tearing open condoms with their teeth in their hurry to protect themselves. The background text is translated:
- “I cannot open this at all,” the geisha is to have said. “ . . . I don’t have scissors. . . . Oh, this smells really odd, it has to be the spermicide; it’s also slimy.”
This print is based on a 1988 watercolour very similar in composition, but with different text (see ‘Ascending Chaos, The Art of Masami Teraoka’, Chronicle Books, 2006, p. 115).
From the AIDS Series, Geisha in Bath is a woodblock print in 46 colors from 34 blocks of carved, laminated cherry wood. Printed by Satoshi Hishimura on Echizen Kizuki Hosho, 100% Kozo paper made by Ichibe Iwano who bears the title National Living Treasure. The blocks were carved by Motoharu Aaska and published in a numbered edition of 75 (originally proposed as an edition of 200, but in 2010, Teraoka changed the numbered edition size to 75), plus proofs. Signed and numbered on the verso.
beautiful women (bijin-ga - 美人画) (genre)