Born in Tokyo in 1913, Sadao Watanabe converted to Christianity as a young man. Trained as a textile designer he came under the influence of Yanagi Soetsu, the man who headed the Folk Art movement. After WWII he became famous for his large oeuvre of Bible-inspired stencil-prints. Generally he uses momigami, crumpled paper, which is then given a background colour, after which the black is overprinted by means of a stencil made of shibugami, the same stencil-paper as used by Yoshitoshi Mori; colours are generally applied by hand.
His work is generally loved and collected, also by people not usually interested in Japanese art - not surprisingly, for his strong and primitive forms have a universal appeal.
