Mizufune Rokushu

Mizufune Rokushu (水船六洲, 1912–1980) was a Japanese woodblock print artist active within the sosaku-hanga movement during the mid-twentieth century, producing prints of figures and landscapes in the creative print tradition. Working during a period when the sosaku-hanga movement was attracting a growing number of practitioners across Japan, Mizufune contributed to the movement's expanding body of work while developing his own approach to figurative and landscape subjects.

Born in 1912, Mizufune embraced the sosaku-hanga principle of the artist as sole creator, designing, carving, and printing his own works by hand. His prints encompassed both figure studies and landscape compositions, reflecting the broad range of subjects explored by sosaku-hanga artists during the movement's postwar period of growth. His figurative works showed an interest in the human form rendered through the expressive possibilities of the woodblock medium, while his landscapes engaged with the Japanese natural and built environment.

Mizufune participated in print exhibitions in Japan and was a member of the community of creative printmakers who sustained the sosaku-hanga movement through its decades of development. While detailed biographical information remains limited, his surviving prints attest to a committed practice within the tradition of Japanese creative printmaking.

Mizufune died in 1980 at the age of sixty-eight. His prints surface occasionally in the Japanese print market, where they offer collectors an opportunity to explore the broader range of artists who contributed to the sosaku-hanga movement beyond its most celebrated figures.