The pub­lish­er Watan­abe Shoz­aburo (1885–1962) found­ed the art move­ment Shin Hanga (new graph­ic art/printing) in 1915. Designs by liv­ing artists were real­ized by wood engravers and print­ers using the tra­di­tion­al pro­duc­tion method of ukiyo‑e. The artists adopt­ed the imagery of ukiyo‑e, beau­ti­ful women, actors, flow­ers, birds and land­scapes and used ideas from West­ern paint­ing, such as per­spec­tive and shad­ing, to cre­ate their images. The great earth­quake in Japan on Sep­tem­ber 1, 1923 destroyed Watan­abe’s store and his print­ing blocks. Ear­ly Shin hanga prints are there­fore rare and par­tic­u­lar­ly valuable.