Yasuhide Kobashi

Who is Yasuhide Kobashi?

Yasuhide Kobashi was a Japanese woodblock print artist, painter, sculptor and stage designer. He was born in Kojima in Okayama Prefecture. His father was a ceramic artist and head of the Kyoto Industrial Craft Company. Kobashi learned printmaking from the sōsaku hanga master Unichi Hiratsuka. In 1955, Kobashi graduated from the Kyoto College of Crafts and Textiles, and in 1959, he moved to New York City. Nelson Rockefeller was Kobashi's patron, and acquired one of the artist's sculptures for the New York State Executive Mansion in Albany.

Kobashi is best known for his sōsaku hanga woodblock prints and his sculptures intended to be rearranged, which he called "self-constructions". The Cleveland Museum of Art, the Honolulu Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Neuberger Museum of Art, and the Weisman Art Museum, are among the public collections holding work by Kobashi.