Peterborough Cathedral

Along with the other two prints in Auckland’s collection, this etching was produced when Kenzo Takekoshi studied briefly in London in 1917. Trained as an architect, he was sent to England to study western architecture, and while in the capital he studied the art of etching under Lund, R.E., and executed 12 etchings on copper. Several of these were exhibited and he received excellent reviews in several English journals. However, on his return to Japan he was faced with giving up his new interest in art or face being expelled from his family – a curse that continued into the afterlife, as printmakers were considered lowly craftspeople to high caste Japanese. Even the great Hiroshige, greatest of all the Japanese artists, and who work is much sought by connoisseurs, was all his life a social outcast in his own country. Thus his artistic career was brought to an immediate close.

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