The Procession Of Frogs - Roll Circa 1950-60 By Kazuya Sasagawa (1930-2012) #jdku782

The procession of frogs - box with gallery label (Masamitsu Co Ltd. Tokyo Ginza) - Circa 1950-60
Overall dimensions: approximately 2.00 meters by 75.4 cm / drawn part: 133.0 cm x 59.0 cm
A trace of humidity in the mounting at the top right. The drawing is impeccable and lined with white paper.

Kazuya SASAGAWA (1930 - 2012) trained with Yoshifumi Yamaoka, an avant-garde artist. However, K. Sasagawa deviated from his master's path to create a personal style, imbued with tradition and satire. His compositions on screens or scrolls mainly feature frogs. He twice won the Japanese Literary Artists Prize at the exhibition of the same name in 1983 and 1993.
The procession of frogs depicted on this scroll seems to have its origins in the tradition of “Choju-giga,” caricatures of anthropomorphic animals dating from the 12th century and taken up by artists of the Edo period. Here, the fanciful frogs parody a religious procession. This scroll thus becomes a satirical work while also being a demonstration of the artist’s virtuosity.