Anju Dodiya and Anne Rothenstein on Japanese Prints

Anju Dodiya My first encounter with Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints was at art school, but it wasn’t an inspiring experience at all. It just seemed like some boring assignment – we had to replicate these black and white prints using traditional woodcutting tools. My head, at the time, was full of the abstract expressionists and postmodernists. I was more excited about Robert Rauschenberg than Hokusai. But after I came out of art school, I had a calendar of Japanese prints, which I loved. I knew nothing about them; there was no information about the individual works. (These were the pre-internet days!) I pinned it up in my studio, and I loved looking at it every day. During that time, my first ever body of work as an artist was a series of watercolours. When I had a big pile of them, I showed them to an artist friend, and she said that I would probably like the work of Utamaro. So that’s how I heard of Utamaro. And I loved his work. Maybe it had something to do with the images depicting women in domestic scenes. That was the beginning for me.

Anne Rothenstein It’s funny, because my father was a printmaker and he made woodcuts and linocuts. Growing up, there were all sorts of images around the house. I wouldn’t know whether they were Japanese or Mexican or Brazilian. But my brother, being a very sophisticated fellow, collected matchbox labels when all other boys were collecting football cards. Some of these matchbox labels, which were Japanese, had some of the most beautiful designs. I suppose it was the colour and simplicity that really attracted me.

One of the big differences between our sensibilities is that I am really interested in much later Japanese woodcuts than the ukiyo-e period. I’m interested in the simplicity. I don’t know who the first artist I discovered was, but the main image that comes to mind is the back of a woman’s head. These swathes of blackness in the middle of a painting, alongside perhaps the pattern of a kimono, the depiction of a woman where the face and body seem unimportant. I found that absolutely fascinating and mysterious.

AD I also love that they’re very elegant and, of course, beautiful. But there’s a certain, almost, I would say polite structure, and suddenly the images break from it. It could be a twist of the posture. It could be the knot of the kimono. Or it could be, in shunga – erotic pictures – a sudden flurry of activity in the middle of the bodies. Everything else is sublime. When suddenly, you find this great energy and it breaks the picture, I love that.

AR It has its own momentum in a way that I don’t find in much European art. I admire many artists from a wide range of cultures, but there’s something about these simple gestures in Japanese woodcuts and paintings that I find completely mesmerizing. For instance, I am particularly moved by the nihonga artist Shima Seien’s self-portrait, Untitled (1918). It’s the most amazing image of a woman with a bruise on her cheek. I’ve read about this work, and some scholars have tried to pretend it’s just a smudge of ink. But others clearly see it is a woman who has been mistreated, with a bruised eye. And the rendering is done with such grace and simplicity, as she sits in an all-encompassing black dress with a glimpse of a crimson lining. I think of your work, Anju. You use a lot of this deep black and red.

AD Yes, I do use a lot of charcoal and there is a lot of black. That’s true.

AR There’s something about the sparseness of Shima’s work in contrast to the message it carries. I find it incredibly daring for a woman to be doing this in 1918. Are there particular Japanese artists or images that you would say relate directly to your work?

AD Yes. Of course, initially, I was looking at Utamaro, but later, the work of Utagawa Kuniyoshi really started to engage me. He made this whole series titled ‘Stories of the True Loyalty of the Faithful Samurai’ or the ‘47 Ronin’ (1847–48), depicting this historical group of samurai attempting to avenge their master’s death. I instantly connected with these images. In each little single sheet, there’s this very engaged and energetic figure, and it’s almost like an artist preparing in the studio.

Hokusai’s famous The Great Wave seems to have claws – it’s coming for you. I like the fierce quality that particular image has. Anju Dodiya

It’s always been a private joke, but I feel painting is a martial art. It’s a total do-or-die situation every day in the studio, and there’s so much rigour and intention. It’s all about dying in some way. In 2010, I did a whole series, ‘Face-off (after Kuniyoshi)’, of painters in the studio, painters preparing. As an artist, every day you’re hunting for an image. Also the folds of the garments, which take on the energy of the figure – the rich patterns of the textiles. It triggered many images for me.

AR That’s so interesting because in some ways you’re saying you’re more drawn to the movement in these images, while I’m more moved by the stillness.

AD That’s true. Even Hokusai’s famous The Great Wave (1831) seems to have claws – it’s coming for you. I like the fierce quality that particular image has, for instance. I admire the beauty, the colours; but I find myself drawn to a lot of these very energetic, heroic pictures. They have this stillness or quietude, and there’s a great dignity about these figures, but they also have these intense gestures that are almost comical. Perhaps that’s because they replicate the drama of kabuki. Do you respond to the humour at all?

AR No, that’s not part of my interest, although now you say it, of course I have noticed the humour in many of these early images. I have slight tunnel vision: very limited tastes and interests in all things, although I’m very thorough in my exploration of them.

There’s a painting called Bathing Women (1938) by Ogura Yuki, another nihonga artist, which I just think is one of the most beautiful images I’ve ever seen. You can barely see the women’s bodies, these pale white shapes in pale blue water with their rich black hair.

AD I can see that you’re more interested in the nihonga period, which comes much later.

AR I am. But one ukiyo-e series that I love is ‘The Death of a Noble Lady and the Decay of Her Body’ (c.1700–99), by an unknown artist. These watercolours are like a precursor to Francis Bacon.

AD They are amazing. The way death and decay are observed in all their raw and unbearable beauty! I find that the way images are juxtaposed in Japanese prints achieves a tension: a hand twisting a knot, a landscape with flying paper – these bring so much energy and take you elsewhere, which I find quite remarkable. Mundane objects create these pockets of tension, which really excites me.

AR It makes me think of your work. It’s unusual and interesting how unaware so many people are of the influence that Japanese art has had on Western art. And how it went both ways. It doesn’t seem nearly acknowledged enough.

AD I took almost directly from the linear structure of The Great Wave: the way it falls, the aggressiveness of it. Sometimes there are these little triggers that become part of your work. I started with the idea of the claw and I juxtaposed a figure next to it. I used linear simplicity, but also tried to build up a psychological drama – a figure’s looking here, but its body is twisted, creating a tense anatomy. But also, there are possibilities there to activate the space. And again, I’m going in another direction. Anne, it seems you’re more interested in the silences of the space, but I’m more into the active aspect of it.

AR I agree entirely, but then we all steal different things from similar sources. Even though The Great Wave has not particularly influenced me, the depiction of a solitary human being in a landscape resonates with me.

There’s something about the sparseness of Seien’s work … the message it carries, I find incredibly daring for a woman to be doing this in 1918. Anne Rothenstein

In the earlier prints, for instance Hiroshige’s Evening Rain at Tadasugawara (1834), you get these tiny little people in a rainstorm. How small we are in relation to the vastness of nature. But I’m actually more interested in the depictions of women in solitary pursuits. There are wonderful images of women from the 1930s and ’40s by Kōshirō Onchi, who was himself hugely influenced by European art. You can barely see their faces, which are half-hidden by their own arms while doing their hair in front of a mirror. In one print from his series ‘Beauties of the Four Seasons’ (1927), the female figure’s face is swathed in both a black shawl and a mysterious black cat. But apart from the beauty of these images, I find that these women have containment and clarity.

AD Have you read The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu?

AR No.

AD It’s an 11th-century Japanese classic. It’s a lyrical novel with many royal characters, elegant women and changing landscapes. That aspect really enriched my observations. But it’s not just the women, but the men, the warriors, that catch my attention in the ukiyo-e works. Of course, I don’t support violence, but I love those prints – all the bloody scenes with the severed heads. There is Tsukioka Yoshitoshi’s series ‘Courageous Warriors’ (1883–86) and Kuniyoshi’s samurai. There’s a great intensity and fierce courage about them which fascinates me. I once titled one of my shows ‘How to be brave (in pictures)’, implying that it does take courage to overcome the white of paper or canvas!

AR Do you paint from life? I paint from my imagination, sparked by existing images.

AD No, I don’t. Even if I use specific sources or photographs, it will go through my sketchbook first.

AR Exactly. I will often be at the end of a painting when I’ll suddenly go: ‘Gosh, that looks like it’s got so many Japanese references in it.’ I have done quite a lot of seascapes which remind me of Japanese images, but there’s never an explicit intention to draw from the work.

The thing that I really use – and I’m very aware it is coming from Japanese art – is suddenly putting black somewhere dominant in a painting. It can be in a landscape, it can be in an interior, but this business of the black suddenly making everything else reverberate around it, to me, has been important. The blackness and the space.

Studio at Frieze Masters 2025 comprises: R. H. Quaytman presented by Miguel Abreu Gallery (Stand E8), Anne Rothenstein presented by Stephen Friedman Gallery (Stand C11), Dorothy Cross presented by Frith Street Gallery (Stand C12), Glenn Brown presented by Gagosian (Stand D9), Samia Halaby presented by Sfeir-Semler Gallery (Stand F11) and Anju Dodiya presented by Vadehra Art Gallery (Stand G8).

This article first appeared in Frieze Masters magazine 2025 under the title ‘In the Stillness, A Wave’.

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^{Main image: Front of the National Gallery © The National Gallery, London.}