Born in Yamagata prefecture in 1907, Gihachiro Okuyama was an active member of both the sosaku hanga and shin hanga movements. He began formal artistic study in 1923, and exhibited prints with Nihon Sosaku-Hanga Kyokai in 1927. Between 1928 and 1931, he produced around 40 poster designs and woodblock-printed commercial advertisements. Okuyama founded the Tokyo Advertisement Art Association (Tokyo Kokoku Bijutsu Kyokai) in 1931 and contributed prints to the series One Hundred Views of Great Tokyo (Dai Tokyo Hyakkei) the following year. In 1942, he joined Umetaro Azechi and Uichi Takayama in the founding of Shin Hanga Kyokai. During the war, Okuyama participated in Nihon Hanga Hokokai, an organization where woodblock print artists worked together to obtain printing materials. He began his own publishing firm following the war. The firm published reproductions of famous ukiyo-e prints, but folded in 1948. Unfazed, Okuyama founded print workshop Matsudo in 1954, printing his own landscapes and facsimiles of famous Eastern and Western artworks. Gijin, Okuyama’s son and a woodblock print artist in his own right, carved the blocks and took over the workshop in 1973. (from Ronin Gallery)