Circa 1970, woodblock print, yellow ground populated with the Three Wise Men alighting from their horses in Bethlehem as Mary awaits at the door on the right, signed in pencil Sadao Watanabe to lower right of print.

12 x 15 3/4 in.

Private Collection, Portland, Oregon

Sadao Watanabe was born in Tokyo in 1913, was baptized Christian in 1930, and throughout his career, based his designs exclusively on biblical subjects. This said, the Christian stories and figures of his works are interpreted via traditional Japanese techniques. Watanabe took part in the folk-art movement in Japan which began in the 1930s as an attempt to preserve various traditional arts, among them stencil printing, which Watanabe appreciated. Watanabe and Yoshitoshi Mori were the best-known 'sosaku hanga' artists who used the medium called kappazuri (stencil printing), a technique related to 'katazome' (stencil dyeing) which originated in Okinawa (the technique there was called 'bingata').

The bold expressive style and religious iconography are characteristic of artist Sadao Watanabe, a Japanese Christian artist whose biblical prints were delineated in the Japanese mingei (folk art) tradition and whose works have been exhibited in major museums throughout the world, including the Vatican and the Louvre.


Good estate condition; secured to mat with paper mounting tape at top left and right corners.