Hoshi Jôichi (1913 - 1979)

Hoshi Jôichi was born in Niigata prefecture; his parents moved to Taiwan and he graduated there at the Tainan Normal School. From 1932 to 1946 he was a teacher in Taiwan. It was only after the war that Hoshi began to do prints. He first exhibited with the Nihon Hanga Kyôkai in 1948. Somewhat later, Hoshi enrolled in the oil painting department of the Musashino College of Fine Arts and graduated there in 1956 at the age of forty-three.
In 1960, 1962 and 1964 he was represented at the Tokyo Biennale, and in Sao Paulo in 1967.
His first prints were rather abstract depictions of stars and constellations. Around 1970 he made a rather abrupt change in artistic style. The new subject matter, which Hoshi explored until his death in 1979, was detailed studies of trees. They are often shown leafless, against a bare background, and rendered more magnificent with the addition of gold and silver.