Rain streaks a white storehouse as a boatman poles past

Rain slants across a grey sky and pale cloud over a river landing. A white-walled storehouse with a grey tiled roof stands on a stone embankment, its wall streaked and stained by the rain and its dark doorway stacked with rice bales; a tall ladder-mast rises beside it, and a timber shed with stacked logs stands next door. On the green water a boatman in a yellow straw hat poles a small boat past the embankment, and another boat with an oar lies in the foreground. The far shore is a low green bank with dark trees.

Kawase Hasui (1883–1957) was the defining landscape artist of shin-hanga, the movement that carried Japanese woodblock printing into the twentieth century. From 1918 he worked with the publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō, travelling almost continuously through Japan and turning roadside sketches into prints of unusual atmospheric precision. Snow, rain and failing light were his real subjects, as much as any temple or harbour. In 1956 Japan recognised his woodblock technique as an Intangible Cultural Property. His prints are held by the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Printed as a museum-grade giclée on Hahnemühle fine art paper using 12-ink archival pigment printing. Available handframed in FSC-certified wood with optional float glass, or unframed. Ships worldwide with free delivery to 30+ countries.