Ohara Koson (1877 -1945) was a Japanese painter and print designer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, part of the shin-hanga (new prints) movement.

Koson was born Ohara Matao; it is thought that he started training in painting and design at the Ishikawa Prefecture Technical School in 1889–1893.

Between 1900 and 1912, Koson worked with a number of different publishers and designed a few Russo-Japanese War prints, as well as genre landscapes, but his passion remained with kacho-e (pictures of birds and flowers).

Using ukiyo-e woodblock printing techniques inherited from the Edo period, he created numerous works of birds, flowers, and animals.

His works are characterized by their delicate, subtle colors, which belie their origins as woodblock prints.

Koson’s prints can almost be described as ‘printed paintings’, as woodblock carvers and printers convincingly transmitted the bulk of his works to the print medium.

More of Ohara Koson‘s delicate paintings can be found at https://japanesegallery.com/artist/koson-ohara and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohara_Koson.

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