Oda Kazuma: Near the Shinyodo-gawa River 新淀川附近

Artist: Oda Kazuma 1882-1956Title: Near the Shinyodo-gawa River 新淀川附近 LithographDate: 1919 Near the Shinyodo-gawa River. Scarce lithograph that shows shipbuilders at work along the Shinyodo River, the confluence of three rivers in Osaka. Today this area is highly industrialized, and we can see the beginnings of this in the smokestacks and large manufacturing buildings in the background. Here the ship is being constructed on land out of wood, by hand. A small fire is burning at left.  Oda Kazuma studied lithography beginning in 1898, and a few years later he worked as a designer at the Koshiba lithography studio in Tokyo. At about that time he spent time with the European artist Emil Orlik, whose lithographic art inspired him. In 1918 Kazuma was a founding member of the Japan Creative Print Association (Nihon Sosaku-Hanga Kyoka) as its only lithographer. This self-printed work is from a set of about six, and is a scarce pre-earthquake design. Kazuma’s lithographs are included in many ma