About the artist:

Taniguchi Shigeru (谷口茂) was born in Fukuoka, Kyûshû in 1948. After relocating to Tokyo in 1974, he began working for a commercial printing company while pursuing art part-time. Briefly, he studied lithography at the Japan Artist's Union in Tokyo, but afterwards worked independently at the Shin Nihon Zokei workshop. Taniguchi's prints have been accepted by many biennales and have been widely exhibited in and outside of Japan. His works are located in various public and private collections, including the Cincinnati Museum of Art, New York Museum of Modern Art, Honolulu Academy of Arts, Warsaw Museum of Modern Arts, and Osaka National Museum of Art. In 1979, Taniguchi was awarded a prize at the Japan Art Festival in Osaka. He used the money to purchase a Nikon camera and began to incorporate photographic images into his printmaking. Taniguchi follows the Japanese art scene, visiting galleries and attending exhibitions, but he also admires artists in the West, such as Man Ray and Jasper Johns. Taniguchi has also produced a large number of oils on canvas—abstract designs with waves or streams of radiant, bright colors. The print shown here, titled Tsukimi de ippai ("One for the Moon"), was made with silkscreen and photographic imaging. It is dated 1981 and numbered 47/50. The sweep of a brush (here "whiting out" the pattern behind it) appears in different forms in a number of his works. The "intrusion" of the brush, whose handle extends beyond the image frame, is both an element of the design and a reminder of the role played by the artist in creating the image. ©2009 by John Fiorillo BIBLIOGRAPHY Tolman, Mary S. and Norman H.: People Who Make Japanese Prints—A Personal Glimpse. Sobunsha, Tokyo, May 1982, pp. 25-26; 170-183; and color plate on p. 177.