Description
Artist: Masami Teraoka (1936-)
Signature: Titled, signed and numbered in pencil on verso. Edition of 200
Circa: 2001
Size: 10.37” x 15.75”
Condition: Superb impression, color and condition.
Description: Sarah and Octopus/Seventh Heaven, 2001, 29 Color woodblock printed from hand-carved blocks of cherry wood with natural dyes on handmade Hosho paper. From Teraoka’s AIDS Series. A reinterpreted work of Hokusai’s “Pearl Diver and Two Octopuses (1814). Teraoka felt that for the 21st century Sarah should be careful to use condoms even with her fantasy octopus.
Masami Teraoka was born in 1936 in Onomichi, Japan. He studied art at the Kwansei Gakuin University in Kobe, Japan and at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, California. Teraoka mixes traditional ukiyo-e style elements with more contemporary issues of the day, such as the increasing reliance on Personal Computers and AIDS. Best known for his paintings, Teraoka uses watercolors to “mimic woodblock prints”. He does, however have a limited number of works done by various printmaking techniques. The only true woodblock prints he has produced in the Ukiyo-e process are “31 Flavors Invading Japan/Today’s Special” (1982) and “Sarah and Octopus/Seventh Heaven” (2001). In 1993, Teraoka collaborated with Tyler Graphics to produce four “Hawaii Snorkel Series,” combining western etching with contemporary Japanese woodblock techniques. Aside from the aforementioned, only a handful of lithographs and etchings have been completed by Teraoka in the print medium.
