Tanbo (Rice Field) | Kiyoshi Saito 斎藤清

Saito spent his youth in Hokkaido and moved to Tokyo in 1932 to study Western oil painting. He began woodblock printing as an autodidact and joined the "Sosaku Hanga" or "Creative Print" movement. In 1938, he designed the famous "Winter in Aizu" series, which depicts landscapes and scenes of his hometown. At the Sao Paulo Biennale in 1951, he won first prize for his print "Steady Gaze", which brought contemporary Japanese woodblock printing international prominence. In 1967, his woodcut of Prime Minister Eisaku Sato appeared on the cover of Time Magazine.
Saito's works have been included in numerous collections, such as the Cincinnati Art Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art, Kanagawa Prefectural Museum.