Matsubayashi Keigetsu (1876-1963) Bamboo and RockShowa era (1926-1989), May 1946
A four-panel folding screen, ink on gold-washed silk, depicting slender leafy culms of bamboo around a rugged rock and gnarled tree trunk, inscribed with a 20-character Chinese poem on the same subject, dated Showa hinoe-inu shoka (May 1946), signed Keigetsu Sanjin (Keigetsu the Recluse), sealed Atsushi no in and Keigetsu, and with a further seal at far left. Overall: 175cm x 286cm (68 7/8in x 112 5/8in); image: 171cm x 282.2cm (67¼in x 111 1/8in).注脚One of the most influential and innovative twentieth-century artists in the Nanga tradition (which based itself on Chinese 'literati' brush painting) Matsubayashi Keigetsu formed the Nihon Nangakai (Japan Nanga Association in 1906) and was a consistent exhibitor at the Bunten official national salon and its successor iterations from 1908 until 1956, becoming a juror in 1919 and President of the Imperial Art Academy in 1937. He was one of the last individuals to be appointed (in 1944) to the order of Teishitsu Gigeiin (Artist-Craftsman to the Imperial Household) and received many further honours during his prolific postwar career.