Wednesday 26 October 2011

Chimei Hamada


Soaring, 1958

Irritating B, 1975

Dead End, 1981

Decorative work for the poetry of Hiroshi Osada II, 1973

Ghost Brought Back to Life, 1956



Landscape, 1953


A-re-re, 1974


The Japanese artist Chimei Hamada (b.1917) studied at the Tokyo University of Fine Arts before serving in the army in China during World War II. In 1950 he began a series of etchings, Elegy for a New Conscript, in which he translated his experiences of war into grotesque, satirical and hallucinatory monochrome images, some of which remind me a little of the work of Alfred Kubin or even Goya, although others are something else entirely. There isn't a great deal of his work to be seen online, but there's a few more images here, here, and here.