“A Print Is Half a Picture”: Printmaker Gen Yamanaka’s 1970s at Tokyo University of the Arts | Engraved Memories #2

“A print is worth less than a single drawing in my sketchbook.” Fifty years ago, Tokyo University of the Arts had no printmaking department, only a research studio within the oil painting department. Printmaker Gen Yamanaka, who creates the cover art for Hon no Machi, looks back on the days when he first turned to woodblock printing. (From installment 2 of “Engraved Memories,” Hon no Machi, June 2026 issue)

“A Print Is Half a Picture”

An oil painting professor reportedly said, “A print is worth less than a single drawing in my sketchbook. You’re really going to a place like that?”

This was some fifty years ago. Only two students switched from oil painting to woodblock printing: Yamanaka and a friend. At the time there was no printmaking department as such, only a “printmaking studio” within the oil painting department. People even said that “a print is half a picture.” Even so, Yamanaka felt that oil painting was merely something borrowed from the West.

Remembering Professor Tadashige Ono

At the center of the printmaking studio was Professor Tadashige Ono. Still a part-time lecturer, he was due to reach retirement age and leave the university that year. The welcome party for new students was held at a fugu (pufferfish) restaurant, a small gathering of just five or six. As the sake flowed, the professor suddenly took off his glasses in front of Yamanaka, who had come along feeling a little nervous.

Showing us a scratch on the lens, he said, “A police detective did this to me long ago. They work in pairs: one of them bullies you, and the other one calms him down. That’s how they do it.”

He also said, “I’m not the kind of person who belongs at an arts university.” Yamanaka knew that Professor Ono had once been involved in the proletarian art movement.

The article goes on to describe how a remark by one student at a critique session sent the relationship between the professor and his students in an unexpected direction. The full article and images of the works are available in the June issue PDF.

*Gen Yamanaka creates the cover art for Hon no Machi.

Gen Yamanaka
Born in 1954 in Kitakata, Fukushima Prefecture. Printmaker. After graduating in oil painting from the Department of Painting, Faculty of Fine Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts, he turned to woodblock printing. He has held numerous solo exhibitions in Japan and abroad and also illustrates collections of poetry and pictures. He has created the cover art for Hon no Machi since the May 2026 issue.

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This article introduces installment 2 of “Engraved Memories” by Gen Yamanaka (printmaker), published in the June 2026 issue (Vol. 14) of Hon no Machi, the community salon magazine of Kanda, Ochanomizu and Jimbocho.

▶Read the June 2026 issue of Hon no Machi (PDF, in Japanese)

Founded in 1980, Hon no Machi brings you the latest from Book Town every month, together with Jimbocho’s bookstores, publishers, cafés and galleries.

▶ For other installments of “Engraved Memories,” see All installments

日本語で読む — Read this article in Japanese