Hawaiian Artist Hiroshi Honda (1910-1970) Original Japanese Kacho-Ga Painting "Bokkotsu on Silk"

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"Bokkotsu" (or mokkotsu) is a painting technique in which objects are rendered without using an outline. This technique originated in … Read more "Bokkotsu" (or mokkotsu) is a painting technique in which objects are rendered without using an outline. This technique originated in China and, according to some specialists, the proper usage should be limited to painting in color. However, the term is also commonly used for ink renderings without outlines. For paintings in color, the technique is seen mostly in bird and flower painting (kacho-ga).

Hiroshi Honda was born in Hilo, Hawai'i, around 1913. He grew up in Hilo until he was sent to Japan at the age of six to live with the family of a childless uncle where it was expected he would take over the responsibility of operating the family store. While in Japan, Honda received art training in sumi-e brush painting as well as the hand painting of mon or family crests on kimono. As a young man in Japan, Honda was drafted into the Japanese air force. In 1939, his mother traveled to Japan to take him home to Hilo.

In the 1940s, Honda, like many other Japanese Americans, was sent to an internment camp where he was separated from his wife and family. The surviving body of work by Hiroshi Honda from World War II includes three sketchbooks, a single relief print, and some fifty watercolors that were discovered and preserved by his youngest child, Edward Honda. In his drawings, Honda explored a variety of subjects, ranging from young children, landscapes, and versions of traditional Buddhist imagery. See less