Onchi Koshiro is considered one of the leading innovative figures among Japan's 20th-century artists. He is credited with producing Japan's first purely abstract work Light Time in 1915. He produced single sheet prints and book designs, as well as being a poet and art theorist.... (http://www.vernegallery.com/japanese-prints/KoshiroOnchi/60) Kōshirō Onchi (2 July 1891-3 June 1955), born in Tokyo; Japanese print-maker. The father of the sōsaku-hanga movement in 20th century Japan, and a photographer. ... Trained in both traditional calligraphy and modern western art. After contacts with Takehisa Yumeji in 1909, between 1910 and 1915, he studied oil painting and sculpture at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts (Tōkyō Bijutsu Gakkō). In 1912, he founded the print and poetry magazine called Tsukubae. Onchi was also a book designer in the early days when it was impossible for sōsaku-hanga artists to survive by just doing creative prints. He designed over 1000 books in his career. In 1939, he founded the First Thursday Society (Ichimokukai), which was crucial to the postwar revival of the sōsaku-hanga movement. The society held artist gatherings once a month in Onchi’s house.... The American connoisseurs Ernst Hacker, William Hartnett and Oliver Statler also attended. The First Thursday Collection (Ichimoku-shū), a collection of prints by members to circulate to each other, was produced in 1944. Through the First Thursday Society, Onchi provided aspiring young artists with resources and comradeship during the war years when resources were scarce and censorship severe. Onchi's prints range from early representational to postwar abstract prints. As an early advocate of the sōsaku-hanga movement, Onchi believed that artistic creation originates from the self.... Onchi innovated by incorporating fabrics, string, paper blocks, fish fins, and leaves in his prints....(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dshir%C5%8D_Onchi) undefined

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