The Mill, Dixmuden (in collaboration with Frank Brangwyn)

Yoshijiro Urushibara

This color woodcut was plate 4 and was included in a portfolio titled 'Ten Woodcuts by Yoshijiro Urushibara' done in 1924 and published by John Lane at his The Bodley Head Limited press in London in 1924. The portfolio included an introduction by Laurence Binyon. The woodcuts were cut and printed by Urushibara after watercolors by his friend and collaborator, British artist Frank Brangwyn.

Urushibara hand printed an edition of 250 plus 20 artist's proofs that were not offered for sale. He used different Japanese papers and signed 7 of the images with pencil, in the European tradition and the other 3 with his seal signature in red ink.

'The Mill, Dixmuden' depicts a mill with the ruined town hall in the background in the city of Dixmuide (Diksmuide) in the Flanders province of West Flanders, (Belgium) after the First World War. The mill is on the river Yser and the town hall was destroyed during the Battle of Yser in WWI and was rebuilt in the 1920s.