Framed Abraham Entertaining Three Angels

Original stencil print by contemporary artist Sadao Watanabe.

Print size: 18.5" x 22"

Frame size: 25" x 29-1/4"

Edition 31/50, 1968.

Biography courtesy of www.scriptum.com:

Sadao Watanabe (1913-1996)

Sadao Watanabe was born in Tokyo in 1913. He and Yoshitoshi Mori were the two best-known ‘sosaku-hanga’ artists to use the medium called kappazuri (“stencil printing”), a technique related to ‘katazome’ (“stencil dying”).

Watanabe, who was baptized a Christian in 1930, based his designs exclusively on biblical subjects, though his Christian stories and figures are interpreted through a filter of traditional Japanese techniques and even some older Buddhist figure prints. The fold-art movement in Japan began in the 1930s as an attempt to keep alive various traditional arts, among them stencil printing. Watanabe was an early member of a small but important group of artists who dedicated themselves to learning and preserving these arts. Watanabe’s Biblical prints have been popular throughout the world, and have been hung in the Vatican, the White House, in museums and in private collections. Watanabe’s interpretations of Biblical themes are sincere and moving.

In 1947 he won the first prize from the Japan Fold Art Museum and the Kokugokai Prize in 1948. A one-man show was held at the Portland Art Museum in 1962 and his works were exhibited in the Modern Print Show at the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo, Japan. He taught printmaking in Oregon and Minnesota and in 1976 visited America again at the invitation of the Lutheran Church. He had another one-man show at the Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, in 1977. In 1982, Watanabe received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Linfield College, Oregon. His works are in numerous collections including the New York Museum of Modern Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Honolulu Academy of Arts and the Vatican Museum of Modern Religious Art.