Night Rain at Yokohama City

Nishimura Hodo

This color woodcut by Nishimura Hodo (who also signed as Saito Hodo) depicts a night street scene in Yokohama. Everyone has their umbrellas opened and the lights create subtle shadows of the figures in the foreground. The effect of rain is created using spider-web thin silver lines that become more apparent in a raking light and almost disapper when the image is viewed straight on.

Nishimura Hodo , who also signed as Saito Hodo, was a woodblock print and watercolor artist. His woodblock prints were published via Takemura Hideo in Yokohama in the mid to late 1930s. These were simply signed with his 'gago' (artist pseudonym) "Hodo", and sealed "Ho", with no indication of the family name (as is usual practice).

His watercolours are signed "H. Saito", his family name (Saito) plus first initial of his gago "H". Initially there was no conclusive evidence that the woodblock print artist Hodo was the watercolor artist H. Saito, although the styles were very similar, and they both worked with the publisher Takemura. It now appears that they are the same.