Hasegawa Sadanobu III

Hasegawa Sadanobu III 三代長谷川貞信 (1881-1963) [Konobu III 三代小信]

BIOGRAPHY

Sources: Guide to Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints: 1900-1975, Helen Merritt, University of Hawaii Press, 1992, p. 28; The Hotei Encyclopedia of Japanese Woodblock Prints, Amy Reigle Newland, Hotei Publishing Company, 2005, p. 439; website of Osaka Prints http://www.osakaprints.com/content/information/artist_bios/biographies/bio_sadanobu2nd.htm [link no longer active as of 10-26-23]

The third of six generations of blood descendants of Hasegawa Sadanobu I 長谷川貞信 (1809-1879), Hasegawa Sadanobu III was born in Osaka with the given name of Nobutarō. He studied with his father Hasegawa Sadanobu II (1848-1940), who used the gō (art name) Konobu 小信 (making him Konobu I). A younger brother of Sadanobu II, who lived until the age of twenty, used the gō Konobu II, making Hasegawa Sadanobu III, Konobu III, when he took this name as his gō. Konobu III's specialties were prints related to the kabuki and bunraku (puppet) theaters and historical prints.

In 1925 he designed thirty prints (divided into 3 collections) showing various types of kumadori or stylized makeup used in kabuki. In 1926/1927 he created a series of forty-eight prints depicting the stage set and main characters (in the form of puppets) of twelve bunraku plays. The series was titled Illustrated Collection of Famous Japanese Puppets of the Osaka Bunrakuza 大阪文楽座人形画集日本名物 and contained twelve sets of prints, one for each play. The first edition of this collection of prints was jointly issued by the publishers Bijutsusha 美術社 in Tokyo and Hangakai hanmoto 版画会板元 in Kyoto. At an unknown later date Uchida Publishing obtained the blocks and re-issued the prints depicting puppets.

As a caution, due to the overlapping active years of Sadanobu II and III and Sadanobu III and IV, work bearing the Konobu signature is often miss-attributed.

For a sampling of the work of the first three generations of Sadanobus, see http://kul01.lib.kansai-u.ac.jp/library/etenji/hasegawa/teishin-top.html [accessed 11-24-23], which, hopefully, has correctly attributed all the work displayed.

The Hasegawa Lineage

Sources: "Mameban nishiki-e" by Peter Ujlaki and John Fiorillo, appearing in Andon 103, Journal of the Society for Japanese Arts, spring 2017, p. 64 and as clarified in email exchanges with John Fiorillo on June 6, 2017 and July 27, 2020.

Note: Ujlaki and Fiorillo in their article note the following: "The literature on the Hasegawa lineage of artists (unusually, all were blood relations, i.e., sons and one daughter; none were adopted into the lineage) offers conflicting identifications for the use of 'Konobu' (earlier gō or art name).